


Highgate

by EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne



Category: The Order of the Stick
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Chapter Length Consistency who?, Multi, Post-Canon, Spoilers, i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2020-10-28 20:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 54,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20784752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne/pseuds/EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne
Summary: The town around Kraagor's statue is made of people forgetting the past. It's made of people who aren't members of the Order, or paladins of the Sapphire Guard, or the crew of the Mechanae, or anyone else who found out what the Gates were before said Gates got sealed away, people who aren't any of those things, not anymore.Pasts are easy to outrun, easy to avoid, easy to bury. People? People are a little harder to outrun, especially when you're a goblin cleric and an elven wizard trying to avoid the ex who learned how to ranger from your parents, the man who's entire family you accidentally murdered (even if you did fix it later), the brother you killed for what turned out to be absolutely nothing, in the end, and the paladin who burned your village down.





	1. Introductions

Deep within the frozen wasteland of the high north, hidden and warmed by the greatest of magic and settled into a small valley, you will find the town of Highgate. In the center of town square, there is a statue of a great dwarven warrior- at the statue’s feet, there rests a tattered red cloak and a destroyed lich’s crown.

When the goblin leader Redcloak allied with the Order of the Stick, it was to the shock of the world. When the Order and their allies vanished off the face of the earth once the final gate was sealed by the Dark One, it was to the shock of many of the very gods- for no matter their power, no matter who searched, only some very select members of the pantheons could discover where they had gone.

In the small town of Highgate, there is a park, faithfully tended by a lovely elven druid named Lirian. Her human husband, Dorukan, teaches the town’s children at their small schoolhouse. A goblin named Redcloak and a dwarf named Durkon manage the local church, one dedicated to all the gods- even the lost Eastern Pantheon.

Only Highgate and the Pantheons remember them- and Highgate’s oddest inhabitants intend to keep it that way.

Two paladins called Lien and O-Chul monitor the state of the town, guarding it from outside threats and organizing hunting parties when Highgate’s casters run short on food spells. The humble couple of Kazumi Kato and her husband, Daigo, run the town’s homey inn and tavern, and a scatterbrained Veldrina and exasperated Wrecan manage the small local clinic. Belkar reigns the caretaker of the town’s livestock and animals, his barn faithfully kept mouse-free by Mr. Scruffy. Higlya Firehelm is the shopkeeper for Highgate’s small magic store, and the town forge is the pride and joy of Sigdi Thundershield and Minrah Shaleshoe. 

Serini Toormuck owns and runs the general store, Celia Greenhilt working as the town’s seamstress (even though they do have wizards for that sort of thing). A small bakery is kept by the elf Inkyrius, their children Elari and Nethel always eager to help. Elan Starshine works as the town’s musician and storyteller, and Haley Starshine remains the town’s negotiator with the local giants and the remote dwarven tribes with which Highgate does business. Roy Greenhilt is the town’s indefinite mayor- as Highgate’s founder and great hero, and the only person pragmatic enough to be trusted with lawmaking, his term was given no specified end. Vaarsuvius is the town’s scribe and librarian, managing the local bookstore and keeping religious track of every outside interaction and internal legal change Highgate has.

Of course, Highgate is a peculiar town for making a home so far up north, and every small town has it’s eccentricities, but it would be foolish to assume that Highgate’s quaint inhabitants really are the epic heroes with whom they share a name. Truly, you think that the lawyer-like bookworm wizard cast and then not only  _ created _ , but cast, the counterspell to Familicide? Or that the town’s ever-kind baker could truly have fought the invading armies of the desert away from the elven lands? Or that the charming and humble goblin priest of the town’s ever-inclusive church was once the evil leader who turned his life around and sealed the Gates?

Please. Such great heroes would never settle in such a small town.

There is, however, so much magic protecting Highgate that the mining towns and the hunting tribes of dwarves and giants alike all let the thought cross their minds, every once in a while. Perhaps the legendary heroes aren’t dead, like everyone says. Maybe they’re just hiding. Maybe they’re just  _ waiting _ .

Such outlandish notions are dismissed on principal, of course. The similarities don’t matter- there’s just no way that Highgate is what some overzealous theorists think it is.

Never you mind the strange red-haired illusionist and the blue-cloaked paladin who showed up together looking for it. They’re probably just looking to move somewhere quiet, a nice little town full of nice normal people where only nice normal things happen.


	2. Nice Normal Things

It was a perfectly normal, perfectly quiet day in Highgate, and the bell above Serini’s door rang as Vaarsuvius shut it behind them. Lirian had allowed a few inches of snow to seep past the town’s magical protections to give them something of a wintertime, and so the elf wound up dusting themself off while fiddling with their fur-lined cloak and taking off their thick gloves. 

Serini gave her favorite elven wizard a bright smile as they approached the counter. Blackwing cawed a greeting as he fluttered his wings to get the snow off his feathers, and Serini’s smile only widened- the raven was always a delight.

“What’ll it be today, V?”

“A mere pound of cranberries and a bushel of rosemary, thank you. And perhaps a morsel for Blackwing, if you’ve got any to spare.”

“Perhaps? What do you mean ‘perhaps’?” Blackwing exclaimed. Serini giggled, pulling a small cube of jerky out of her apron pocket. She kept a stash for the three pets who visited- those being Blackwing, Mr Scruffy, and Bloodfeast. The grey-haired halfling held it up, and Blackwing quickly swooped down to perch on her shoulder so he could eat it.

“Well, I’ll have to get Lirian to grow me some more, but I’ve got enough cranberries in store… might I ask why you’re buying so many of them if you can barely stand them outside of jam?”

“Miss Starshine is coming over tonight, and for some reason her pregnancy cravings have decided the infernal things are delicious.”

“Yikes. I’ll get you those berries, one second.”

Vaarsuvius smiled, and Serini smiled back. Highgate wasn’t great for her old bones, but it was fine enough with Lirian around, and she’d die before losing the chance to pester Redcloak with her daily questions about goblin culture, since she couldn’t wait until he and Vaarsuvius finished writing that book about it.

She was about to turn back, cranberries and rosemary in hand, when she heard the bell chime once more.

“Adventurer’s meeting-” Elan shouted. “Lien says it’s urgent!” 

Vaarsuvius held the door as Elan wrapped Serini in her winter cloak and carried her to the town square, at the center of which sat Kraagor’s statue. The red-clad elf hurried after them, and Blackwing fluttered back onto their shoulder.

Cranberries would have to wait.

“Lien, O-Chul, what’s going on?” Redcloak asked, standing between Durkon and Vaarsuvius in the light snow. The goblin started muttering spells under his breath, trying to warm the popscicle-like O-Chul up- he valued his friendship with the two paladins more than his life, and he’d be damned if one of them died of frostbite on his watch.

“Dammit, I  _ told _ him he’d need something warmer than thick wool,” the goblin priest muttered amidst casting Endure Elements in the hopes that O-Chul might become less hypothermic.

Everyone had gathered into a half-ring around the foot of Kraagor’s statue, where the neatly folded Crimson Mantle and now-rusting Crown of Xykon still rested, unmoved since the founding of the town. Even Haley had shown up, despite the fact that she was nearly in the third trimester of her pregnancy, which meant that whatever news Lien and O-Chul had was truly dire.

“Bad news. Bad, bad news,” Lien said, trying to rub some warmth back into O-Chul’s shoulders. 

“...and what, might I ask, is this oh-so-awful news if yours?” Vaarsuvius asked, with a slight impatience Redcloak could only read because he’d known them for almost a decade.

“Well, we promised Haley to take over negotiations since she’s got a baby on the way, and we were collecting the metal shipment when the Stonefingers’ youngest daughter told us that there is, apparently, a blue-cloaked human paladin with grey eyes and black hair and an Azurian accent, and a redheaded human ranger with a weird tattoo on his face and ice blue eyes and twin swords, who are asking about Highgate, and- they’re asking about  _ us _ ,” Lien said, taking several gulps of air afterwards.

Minrah frowned, and Vaarsuvius inhaled sharply enough that Haley gave them a worried glance, stepping closer to her friend despite the hand resting on her very swollen belly.

“What do you mean?” Minrah asked.

“I mean they’re asking after the goblin priest with the red cape. And the elven druid with blonde hair. And the old human wizard in yellow robes. And the grey-haired halfling rogue. And all of us. Not by name, but from what the Stonefingers told me they’re looking for us- all of us, not just the Sticks or the Scribbles. Even Sigdi and Hilgya.”

The crowd started muttering.

“It- the people asking about us are Soon and Girard. They  _ have _ to be- nobody else would know what to look for,” Lirian called.

“That doesn’t make it any less worrying,” Redcloak began. “I mean, if they found us, then who’s to say others haven’t?”

The crowd kept muttering, getting louder and louder with each passing second, until Mayor Greenhilt decided that enough was enough, and a full blown panic wouldn’t do any of them any good, anyway.

“Okay, okay. We can worry about hypotheticals later. Durkon, Vaarsuvius, Dorukan, Redcloak- I want the protections on the town reinforced. Use every spell slot you can. Kazumi, Daigo, Haley, Elan- make sure the rest of the town isn’t going to panic. Lien, O-Chul, Lirian, and Serini are with me. Everyone else, carry on like none of this is happening.”

The crowd dispersed, going back to mingle with the townsfolk who’d never gone adventuring but had figured the Gates out anyway- mostly humans and goblins, though you got the odd elf or dwarf in there, too. Everyone in Highgate knew about the Gates and knew about everybody’s history with them, from ‘I was a scribe and I ran into a book’ to ‘I was the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle’, and everybody knew that none of it mattered now.

They weren’t goblinfolk or Azurites or miners or scholars or adventurers anymore. They were Highgate’s inhabitants. The Gates were a town secret, not an adventurer’s mystery. They were the small population of a small town with a strange past that they’d collectively left behind, and nobody knew that but them.

Sometimes Roy liked to go with Haley on negotiating trips, just to remind himself that the town secrets were still secrets.

Lirian cast a quick spell, growing a cane for Serini so the halfling could walk over with her to where Roy still stood. Lien and O-Chul half-hobbled over, since Lien was still trying to warm him up and O-Chul was still a popscile even if Redcloak’s Endure Element spells  _ had _ helped.

“Did the Stonefingers say anything else?” Roy asked.

“Th-they d-did s-s-say th-a-at the t-two a-a-asking m-mentioned t-t-traveling he-here be-f-fore.”

“Definetely Soon and Girard, then,” Serini murmured. “But… I mean, for them to find us, they must have been looking, right? Why?”

The four paused, and for a while, it was just snowfall silence.

Lirian shook her head.

“I don’t know how to answer that. We’ll just have to reinforce the town and decide whether or not we want them to find us.”

Roy nodded, and Lien started leading O-Chul to the nearest fireplace.

“Well, I’ve got cranberries to finish selling, so you two can have your angsty heart to heart without my joints interrupting you. And bear in mind that if we do let Girard in my first order of buisness is smacking him.”

Mayor Greenhilt and Lirian nodded their assent, and Serini began her walk back to the general store. 

“...why do you think they’d be coming here? I mean, what would your best guess be?”

Lirian turned to face the statue she’d Stoneshaped all those years ago. Kraagor still stood, solemn and silent, over a folded cloak and a rusted crown.

Soon and Girard had only seen the statue once in their lives, and even then she wasn’t totally sure they’d been able to get a clear look through the tears none of them could seem to stop crying.

“If I had to… I’d say that they’re looking for a place to stay that remembers the Gates. Hinjo and Julio are the only two people outside of Highgate who know, since the crew of the  _ Mechanae _ all settled here after that whole ‘ending war on the Western Continent’ debacle.”

“Best case scenario, that is,” Mayor Greenhilt added, and Lirian hated to admit it, but he was right. 

“Still doesn’t tell me how they’ve managed to travel so far with each other without comitting murder, though,” the druid said wryly, and Roy snickered.

Eventually, the two went their separate ways, for the town park needed tending and Lirian was planning to help the group tasked with reinforcing the magical defenses, and Mayor Greenhilt needed to review some of his paperwork. An illusionist and a paladin, even working well together, would still take at least another few days to find Highgate if they were still stuck at the Stonefinger mine.

Just a few miles outside the town border, a campfire in a cave crackled merrily, and black-haired paladin wrapped in a thick blue cloak was in the process of very pointedly wrapping his redheaded illusionist in yet another layer of fabric after Girard had almost frozen earlier that day.

“I can’t believe we’re actually trying to find the heavily fortified magic town just because we’re sick of not being able to talk to anyone about Kraagor or the Gates,” Girard muttered, partially because he would have said it anyway but mostly to distract Soon from the fact that he was scooting further into the (warm) paladin’s side.

“I got tired of only having Hinjo and you for decent conversation. And you wouldn’t go near him, so we had to figure something out, remember?” Soon replied. His storm grey eyes were closed, and he was getting steadily closer to dozing off as the day wore on- the two had elected to travel by night, since it was less likely someone in… whatever that town was called, would notice them.

“He’s a paladin, of course I’m not going near him.”

“I’m a paladin and you’re in the process of wrapping yourself around me like a particularly cold koala.”

“That’s cause I’m in love with you and shit.”

Soon was making his ‘twelve gods give me strength’ face, so Girard kissed him on the cheek, and the paladin sighed and let the illusionist sling an arm over his ribs.

“I’m honestly looking forward to seeing the others again. And talking to the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle- if half of what we’ve heard is true then I’ve severely misjudged him.”

Girard wrapped his arms around the paladin and started purring, because like hell was he letting him go into another spiral over that Tarrasque-sized issue. Soon rolled over to face Girard, looking  _ very _ sleepy and  _ very _ cute.

“Sleep,  _ athear _ . I’m not letting you beat yourself up over that again.”

The paladin huffed, but he snuggled closer to Girard and the purring had him out cold in seconds, so Girard was inclined to count it as a win.

Soon drifted off within minutes, and Girard let his smile fall. He pulled out the small silver pendant his mother had given him for his last birthday before she died.  It glowed a stark, bright violet against the cave walls, and Girard Draketooth knew without a doubt that the person who'd killed his bloodline was in Highgate. 

After all, there was nothing he did better than tracking people down to get revenge.


	3. Once Again

Durkon and Dorukan had fortified the inside of Highgate’s massive magical shield, and Vaarsuvius and Redcloak had taken over strengthening the outside shielding after the other two had run out of spells. This was why a red-clad elf and a black-clad goblin were freezing their asses off, outside the magical shielding of the town, near the North Pole, in the winter.

“Here’s to hoping we get this done before another blizzard hits,” Redcloak grumbled. He and Vaarsuvius were stuck on a complicated spot, because changing the spell structure involved lots of maneuvering around the spellcaster helping you and even more awkward contortions. The strength of arcane and divine magic working in tandem was undeniable- the Gates alone proved it- but that hardly made it easy.

“If we are forced to begin this ritual a third time, you may be required to find another wizard.”

“Wouldn’t blame you.”

“I would extend the same courtesy if you were to force me to find another cleric.”

For a while after that, the only sounds were the wind and Elvish and Goblin swear words. Despite Redcloak’s Endure Elements spell, the two had still dressed warmly, so any bones clicking when they shouldn’t were at least muffled, and the both of them knew that if worse came to worse, Redcloak had healing spells.

Of course, they were at the very last, most complicated part of the ritual. And of course, the snow and the wind covered the sound of approaching footsteps.

So of course, right as Vaarsuvius was about to finish the gods forsaken spell, Girard spoke (despite Soon’s noble attempts to smack a hand over his mouth).

“You’re the asshole who cast Familicide, aren’t you?”

Vaarsuvius jumped, Redcloak whirled, and the spell fizzled out. For a solid minute or two, there was just silence, as the elf and the goblin stared in thin-lipped silence at all of their work being wasted.

“I believe the appropriate phrase is ‘fuck this’. I shall endeavor to notify Lirian and Elan that their services will be required.”

“Normally I’d argue with that but Endure Elements can’t survive a full on Dwarven Lands blizzard and I don’t feel like dying today.”

Soon was watching the exchange in the kind of dumbfounded silence that you only get from watching an elf and a goblin interact not only civilly, but like they might actually not hate each other’s guts. Girard, next to him, was seething in all-consuming rage since he was finally confronting the person who had murdered his entire family and then some.

Or rather, he was seething at the person he  _ thought _ fit that bill, since he was looking at Redcloak and not Vaarsuvius. 

This resulted in a silent paladin, very angry illusionist, extremely confused goblin and extremely panic/guilt stricken elf staring at each other just outside of Highgate as a blizzard drew yet nearer to the town.

Blackwing was back at Serini’s, gorging himself on jerky because Vaarsuvius had left him behind, because Redcloak only had so many spell slots and they didn’t want him to freeze. If they split and ran they were almost certainly getting struck down; if Redcloak did, he was dead. Nobody would exit the barrier with a storm so close or on a day so cold. If they cast a spell they were injured, if they opened their mouth they might be dead, if Redcloak did he  _ would _ be.

If either of them moved on Redcloak, Vaarsuvius would not have a choice. They had run from one fight too many and left their friends, their partners, their family behind to deal with it for them.

It occurred to Vaarsuvius, in a bleak moment of panic, that it had been four years since Highgate had been founded, which meant four years since they had had to fight. 

They’d been Redcloak’s first friend among the Order and their Allies, because they both knew all too well what running from what you’d done felt like. He’d cast the divine component of their spell, the one that revered Familicide, and the goblin had helped them publish it as well. Redcloak had a back room of the church stuffed with books and snacks and cushions for the nights the two of them wound up unable to sleep. 

Girard raised his hands, and Vaarsuvius made a choice.

They weren’t abandoning someone who they knew would never abandon them.

Girard’s spell flew towards Redcloak, and Vaarsuvius barely acted in time, jumping in front of the goblin.

“COUNTERSP-”

The bolt of crackling purple magic struck Vaarsuvius squarely in the chest.


	4. Grim Revelations

Blackwing was lounging on Serini’s lap when lightning went crackling through his chest. The halfling jolted as he shot up, screeching bloody murder from the  _ pain _ of it, but he hadn’t gotten hit, so that meant-

_ Vaarsuvius _ .

“Blackwing- holy shit- what’s going on?”

“Vaarsuvius-  _ Vaarsuvius _ .”

Serini scooped the twitching raven up. There was one person you called first when it came to Vaarsuvius, because they could handle every situation involving them with a ruthless and utterly terrifying efficiency that left even the paladins of Highgate with a healthy fear of angering them.

Serini hobbled out of the doors of her store, leaving her cane behind since her destination was only a few buildings over. As always, the smell of freshly baked tasty things wafted from the building, and the tables on the structure’s front porch were completely full.

Inkyrius, of course, wasn’t outside, or at the bakery’s counter- they were too damn busy baking virtually all of the stuff inside the tidy glass cases Serini passed on her way to the kitchen door.

She got inside with no trouble, and casually walked up to the green haired elf currently pulling a tray of croissants out of the oven.

“Hi Inks. Just wanted to tell you that Vaarsuvius took a blow hard enough to knock Blackwing out cold. Thought you might want to know.”

Inkyrius didn’t even look up from where they were critically inspecting the crissoaints.

“If it’s a dragon, I’m out.”

“They went with Redcloak to strengthen the outer barriers. Now Blackwing is out cold. You know, like a fuckin day after we get word that Soon and Girard are looking for us?”

The baker stopped glaring at their croissants, straightening their spine and turning to the halfling with an expression of such utterly ruthless psychopathy that Serini damn near started planning Girard’s funeral.

“...lemme grab a rolling pin.”

Redcloak stood in the snowfall silence, watching almost in slow motion as Vaarsuvius jumped in front of him and a ball of violet lightning hit them squarely in the chest.

Time slowed, and slowed, and stopped.

_ He was sitting at the edge of the circle of light cast by the Order of the Stick’s campfire, just three weeks after he’d joined them and killed his boss. Xykon had turned out to be little more than a walking undead dumpster fire of incompetence, in the end- he hadn’t even locked his front fucking door without Redcloak there to remind him. _

_ Even so, the goblin sat alone as Durkon patched the rest of the Order up from their final fight with Xykon. The dwarf was the only one willing to do so much as talk to him with more than clipped civility, and Redcloak found himself… _

_ Really, really wishing he’d finished Xykon a lot earlier. And wishing even more that he had Right-Eye here. His brother would have already charmed the shit out of every member of the Order and probably be well on his way to celebrating New Year’s with the two remaining paladins of the Sapphire Guard. _

_ Redcloak missed him. _

_ The goblin was huddling into his blanket, fingering the tattered edges of the Crimson Mantle (which probably wasn’t good for the already semi fucked up divine artifact, but he’d already done some stitching work on the fraying hem and some of the tears, so if worse came to worse he could just fix his mistake and apologize to the Dark One in the morning) and debating the merits of offering to help Durkon out with his current occupation of walking Band-Aid. _

_ Footsteps sounded, and Redcloak looked up, expecting to see Durkon once again. He almost fell over when it turned out to be Vaarsuvius, instead. _

_ The elf sat down next to him without saying a work, and the goblin was too shocked to start a conversation. _

_ “...The four classic elements are classic for a reason, you know.” _

_ “What?” _

_ “I am referring to your use of titanium elementals during the Battle of Azure City.” _

_ Redcloak blinked. _

_ “...why is this coming up now?” _

_ Vaarsuvius didn’t look at him, instead electing to awkwardly glance around the camp. _

_ “I am… not the best with people. However, everyone else in this likely doomed party goes glass-eyed when I try to discuss magic- or anything, for that matter- with them, and your use of titanium elementals suggests that you, unlike every non-wizard adventurer I’ve met thus far, passed Chemistry.” _

_ “You want to debate about elementals.” _

_ “Indeed.” _

_ Despite himself, Redcloak felt a very small smile form. _

_ “Normally I’d consider it a weird start to an equally weird friendship, but considering the fact that I murdered my boss two hours ago and it hasn’t even been a month since I gave up on world domination I think this will probably be the most normal thing about my life for a very long time.” _

_ Vaarsuvius looked kind of confused, but it was less like ‘Elan is speaking in vaguely coherent sentences I can actually understand’ and more ‘not sure I get this right now, but I will definitely be investigating further’. _

_ He could work with that, and considering that three hours later Roy glanced over and did a double take at the two talking about the difference in elven and goblin bread, so could they. _

Girard Draketooth- the absolute last person Redcloak expected to do that- was clutching a brightly glowing pendant, and the goblin might have stood back and listen to reason had he gone for anyone besides Durkon or Vaarsuvius.

But he’d gone for Vaarsuvius. Who was blunt and awkward and trying so very hard to figure out how other people clicked, who had defended him viciously throughout the years (even more so after their two year stint of undoing Familicide- all but two months of which were spent creating the spell), who came to the chapel just before Highgate really woke up with something from Kyrie’s Confections and two cups of coffee.

Vaarsuvius was one of his best friends. Even Durkon had had his days of well and truly thinking Redcloak might be irredeemable, but Vaarsuvius never once did. Maybe it was because that meant admitting that they were irredeemable too, or maybe it started with that and became something else. 

It didn’t change the fact that they were the only other person Redcloak knew who understood being one of the most despicable people on the planet, and the experience Vaarsuvius gained from Familicide had left them so endlessly forgiving you could almost mistake it for them having patience with anything besides magic and their kids.

Redcloak watched the world unfold in slow motion as purple magic singed Vaarsuvius’ robes. He knew they’d spend a week complaining about having to get new ones.

Vaarsuvius hit the snow covered ground in front of Redcloak, Girard Draketooth drew his swords, and time began again.


	5. A Sudden Halt

Redcloak spent about three seconds staring at the unconscious and burned as all fuck elf on the ground in front of him before snow crunched under Girard’s boots and the goblin turned to half-angry, half-unsure ice blue eyes.

“ _ Fuck you, _ ” Redcloak hissed, and even he was a little startled by the venom in the words.

“You killed-”

“A lot of people, yeah, I know. If you were looking to throw some electricity at the person who cast Familicide then we’re done here and you can leave now.”

Girard blinked. Soon looked… kind of shellshocked as fuck, which was a little confusing, but-

_ ...he’s probably never seen an elf and a goblin work together without palpable hatred between them. _

“There are a lot more names than I’d like on my list of collateral damage, but ‘Draketooth’ isn’t one of them. If you’re looking for the person who wiped you all out, then congratulations, you found them and Beefy Magic Missiled them in the chest. Their ex is probably on their way to kill you right now, and considering Serini’s deep and abiding love for Blackwing she’s probably with them.”

Redcloak let the two people in front of him process that as he knelt in the snow, putting his hands on Vaarsuvius’ shoulders, careful of the burns now marking most of the elf’s torso.

“Cure Critical Wounds. Cure Critical Wounds. Cure Serious Wounds. Cure Moderate Wounds.”

The goblin watched as Vaarsuvius’ wounds slowly knitted shut, leaving nothing more than pale scars and very damaged robes behind, a fact that Redcloak quickly covered with his jacket.

For once, Girard sheathed his weapons, took a deep breath, and decided to actually think things through for a change.

“You- you didn’t cast the spell- and the elf did.”

“Yep.”

“So-”

“So you’re done with the little revenge quest. We reversed it, and we got an army of black dragon relatives bearing down on us for our troubles. They paired up with Tarquin and everyone else left who wanted the Gates and refused to realize the Gates were gone. Everyone in this town almost died so many times we stopped counting as we fled our places in Cliffport and wound up stuck in the middle of every war on the Western Continent.”

Girard stood stock still as Redcloak kept talking, wrapping Vaarsuvius up in his jacket and lifting the still-unconscious wizard like the toothpick-boned knife-jointed too-thin elf they were.

“We couldn’t escape the wars, so we ended them. And that had us realizing that if we ever wanted to live anywhere in any semblance of safety, it had to be exactly what we built Highgate to be. Because nobody can leave us the fuck alone even though everything we have that could forward their evil schemes is only able to be used by people who won’t, knowledge included.”

The goblin turned to Soon, who’d grabbed Girard’s hand at some point, and Girard, who looked… a lot like someone who understood what Highgate had been through more than he’d ever wanted to.

“So. You can either pretend this was a Nat One incident and we can all get on with our lives like this didn’t happen, or I can set Inkyrius on you and have you both dead within the hour.”

“...lead the way,” Girard said, in a voice as tight as the white-knuckled grip he had on Soon’s hand.


	6. Long Story Short

Entering Highgate felt weirdly like walking through a wall made of the tingly feeling you get when the caffeine sets in after an all nighter. The shield kept everything under wraps- it hid the town in every sense of the phrase, and so once the tingles of walking through pure Abjuration magic were gone, you were immediately hit by a wall of color and scent and sound. Girard blinked, trying to pick out the black-clad goblin carrying the elf in red amidst a suddenly  _ there _ crowd. Soon, next to him, tightened his grip on Girard’s hand.

“I have no idea how to feel about any of this,” the illusionist whispered.

“Start with the crushing weight of the consequences of your prejudice which led to the deaths of thousands of goblins who were pretty much just trying to live their damn lives.”

“So you  _ are _ taking this about as well as I am.”

The two followed their heavily reluctant guide to a small chapel, and Girard started at the sight of six pantheons represented in the statues adorning it.

The Eastern Gods were not forgotten, it seemed.

The goblin walked in, and Soon and Girard followed, taking in the artwork that marked every god and demigod of every pantheon, including the Eastern Gods and the Dark One. The long dead fourth contributors to the Snarl stood tall and proud, chiseled from marble with offerings piled at their feet. 

A glance around revealed that every pantheon had offerings at their altars- lots of them. Things from all around the world- mostly food, but you got flowers and jewelry and the like as well. 

Incense burned in six wildly different types of smoke, in various smells that incense didn’t have without magic’s involvement. Petrichor and spice and jasmine in front of the glazed clay statues of Marduk’s Clan, citrus and flowers and woodsmoke and a faint tang of magic before the delicately carved wood of the Elven Gods, oriental spices and flowers winding it’s way among the bronze statues of the Twelve Gods, the smell of snow and metal and alcohol in front of the grey stone statues of the Northern Pantheon. This was hardly unusual for a chapel, especially not one this high end.

As he and Soon passed the black metal Dark One, Girard was hit with musk and pine needles and a very faint tang of blood. The goblin god stood alone- there were no others in the Pantheon of Shadows, but Girard suspected that with the deaths of some of Highgate’s inhabitants, that would probably change.

The Eastern Gods couldn’t be described as anything but absolutely  _resplendent_. Perfectly polished marble gleamed in the bobbing mage lights on the chapel chandelier and the various candles lit pretty much everywhere except the pews, and the statues were carved (or molded, depending on how many times Lirian was willing to cast Stone Shape- but this was oddly perfect even for her magic) so finely Girard could see the individual threads in the gods’ woven clothes.

The incense of the Eastern Pantheon  _ had _ to be enchanted, because it smelled like things Girard had never- and could never- come into contact with. The one familiar thing about the incense was the smell of the ocean, and even than was just slightly different from what Girard was used to.

“Where’d you get the incense for the Eastern Pantheon? Cause uh… I have no idea what it smells like. Like… it’s familiar but unplaceable.”

The goblin set Vaarsuvius down on an overstuffed couch in the corner. Judging by the nearby cabinet, it was where the chapel’s priests usually took healing calls despite the clinic they’d passed on the way there.

“All the incense was a gift. It’s enchanted to never run out- we lit the sticks four years ago when we finished building the chapel, and we haven’t touched them since.”

“Shit.”

“It’s pretty cool, yeah.”

“I am so sorry. Your chapel is cool as hell and so are both of you- anyone who Lirian and Dory trust to fuck with their shielding is someone who’s a certified badass, so in retrospect I probably should have realized that attacking you would get me killed.”

It was, sadly, the best and most heartfelt apology Girard had given to anyone but Soon, because he really did suck at them.

Fortunately, the goblin seemed to realize that, and he gave Girard a short nod and a sigh.

“Just don’t do it again. Durkon should be back soon- he said something about stopping by the Kato tavern, so I’m not totally sure how sober he’s going to be. In the meantime, I’m Redcloak, one of the two caretakers of this chapel, and if you want to pester me with questions about the chapel I’ll let you because I need something to do while Vaarsuvius wakes up.”

Soon smiled, and took the invitation before Girard got the chance.

“Where’d all the statues come from? These look a little too detailed to be made by any craftsman alive.”

“They were gifts from the gods.”

At  _ that _ , Girard sat down on one of the pews before he could fall over. Soon stayed standing, by some miracle, but his smile had taken on a what-the-fuck edge.

“When we fled Cliffport, Tarquin caught us and took us to the Western Continent. It took almost three years for us to escape, which we did by ending war on the Western Continent entirely because people seemed determined to give us no other options. Afterwards, we realized we were veritably fucked if we kept living openly, so we all faked our deaths and headed to the Dwarven Lands, where building an isolated town is easy.”

Soon sat down next to Girard, already 100% enraptured with Redcloak’s story. It was kind of cute, actually; the paladin did this with every good story he found despite his tendency to call Girard on his bullshit.

“We were halfway through the mountain range when I received a visit from the Dark One himself in my sleep. Lien, O-Chul, Veldrina, Lirian, Durkon, and several others received similar visits from their own gods. The pantheons had apparently decided to help us, and they teleported us up here and cleared the weather long enough for us to build the town. Durkon and I had just gotten the pews inside the building when it got zapped by five pantheons at once, and then the statues, the incense, and everything else including the infinitely burning candles were just sorta… here. We’ve been piling offerings up ever since- some of them actually vanish and then we wind up knowing that a literal goddess is wearing the necklace Lien’s ex-boyfriend got her.”

“...shit.”

“Yep. It was platinum and diamond, though, so we’re not too embarrassed about it.”

Girard wanted to tell the goblin that he knew he was lying through his teeth, but his Insight was better than that and there was no fucking way Redcloak was lying right now.

“ _ Shit _ ,” the illusionist said, again, because at this point that was just kind of all his mental facilities amounted to right now.

“Hnng- wha- Redcloak? Why-”

The purple haired elf stopped rubbing their temples immediately upon spotting Soon and Girard and sat bolt upright.

“You okay?” Redcloak asked, and the elf just nodded as they fixed a glare on the two humans sitting in the pew in front of them.

“I question your decision to bring them here, but I suppose there is no better place to put them besides the small graveyard beneath Bitterleaf’s barn. How long have I been unconscious, and how much has transpired in that time?”

“We’re not killing them before their party members can, about ten or fifteen minutes, and I’ve given them a watered down as shit version of how and why the town got founded divine involvement included.”

The elf sighed.

“Very well. I suppose I must introduce myself- I am Vaarsuvius, of the original six members of the Order of the Stick, and the caretaker of Highgate’s library as well as the tracker of it’s laws. I am the one who cast Familicide, yes, and with Redcloak’s help I was able to reverse it. Is there anything else you would like to know?”

“...nope,” Girard squeaked.

Vaarsuvius got up, Redcloak carefully watching to make sure they didn’t have any lingering problems doing so. The wizard idly finished buttoning Redcloak’s jacket over their burned robes as they took their levitating spellbook out of it’s pouch on their belt- runes printed on the cover glowed pink as the book flew up to eye level with the elf, opened itself, and started leafing through pages so Vaarsuvius could make sure it wasn’t damaged. 

“...cool spellbook,” Soon said, in an obvious attempt to break the painfully awkward silence.

“Thank you. I enchanted it with my own magic.”

“Oh wow. Was it particularly difficult, at the time?”

“Quite. I’m much better at enchanting objects now, though- my spellbook was simply the first.”

Vaarsuvius proceeded to completely kill whatever time Soon and Girard had before Inkyrius, Serini, Lirian, Dorukan, Roy, Lien, O-Chul, and Durkon got there in response to Redcloak’s frantically cast Sending spell (and he’d never realized how fucking difficult Sending was to cast until he’d had to do it with a fully unconscious elf in his arms who he couldn’t throw over his shoulder like a potato sack since they’d kill him to avenge their pride. Like, seriously, he was going to redesign the spell so all you had to do was say some words without additional hand movements and thin piece of copper wire).

Redcloak had no idea how they’d managed to create so many enchanted items nor how they’d managed to list them all so quickly, but he didn’t particularly care because Vaarsuvius just flat out broke the laws of nature every two minutes anyway, whether they knew it or not, and because the people he’d called had just walked in the chapel doors and oh fuck Inkyrius brought their enchanted longbow that basically functioned as a non-techy rapidfire machine gun but for arrows instead of bullets.

Serini was holding the baker’s rolling pin in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other that had Redcloak suddenly and violently flashing back to all the times his mother gently smacked him on the head for getting into fistfights with his siblings over the philosophy and moral implications of chemical warfare (again).

Lirian and Dorukan had each brought their staff, and the goblin knew from personal experience that they would use them if prompted to. Roy had his customary sword in it’s sheath, Lien and O-Chul both had their weapons, and Durkon had an obscenely sized tankard in each hand that he had likely drained on the way over. The dwarf promptly dumped both of them at Thor’s feet.

“So ‘e c’n smash some heads in wi’out worryin’ aboot replacements,” Durkon said, as Redcloak sweated profusely while explaining to Inkyrius that Vaarsuvius was fine and  _ no they should not change that I just finished healing them by the fucking Dark One Inks you hear they’re hurt and you come to kill whoever hurt them and then they’re fine and you crack jokes I’m not sure are jokes about shooting them make up your fucking mind- holy shit keep your voice down! They do still have ears! _

“...honestly after Kraagor that just seems tame,” Girard muttered, and the paladin next to him gave a small hum of agreement.

“Now-” Durkon said, sitting down in front of the two humans, on the couch Vaarsuvius was standing next to. 

“Ahm Durkon, Priest o’ Thor, caretaker o’ tha chapel, original cleric o’ the Order o’ tha Stick. Tha two o ye are Soon Kim ‘n Girard Draketooth. Tha green haired elf oer there be Inkyrius an’ before ye ask, thar V’s ex.” 

The purple haired elf in question gave a slight wince, and Durkon patted their side sympathetically.

“Tha human fighter wi’ tha sword be Roy Greenhilt, tha founder an’ leader o’ tha Order o’ tha Stick, mayor o’ tha town, an’ one o’ tha greatest heroes alive. Tha’ two paladins in blue be Lien n’ O-Chul, tha last o’ yer Sapphire Guard an’ tha protectors o’ tha town. Ye kin recognize tha other three, ahm sure.”

Soon smiled, nodded, and said absolutely nothing, because he was smarter than that. Girard was also smarter than that, but the illusionist seemed set on ignoring that fact today.

“So did they break up with the elf because of the whole genocide thing or are they also a sociopath?”

“This is the closest I’ve come to drawing my katana and cutting off your fucking head since the party split,” Soon growled.

Vaarsuvius’ eyes narrowed dangerously, and Durkon silently prepared to cast exactly as many healing spells as Girard would need to survive, and no more than that, because Vaarsuvius was his friend and teammate and the two had bonded quite well over befriending Redcloak. 

(They had been dubbed ‘Redcloak protection squad’ by V’s kids, who kept ‘running into’ the wizard without telling their Parent. It was very sweet on their part, and Durkon would deny if asked that he saw tears in V’s eyes every time it happened).

“What? It’s a valid concern!” Girard said.

“No, you’re just being bitchy! Which, yeah, I’ll grant that you’ve kind of got a right to be even with the counterspell factored in, but that’s hardly an excuse to be cruel!” Soon shot back.

“When your  _ entire fucking bloodline _ \- not just your family, but  _ every family  _ who has  _ ever _ shared so much as a drop of blood with you- is wiped out all because of-”

Vaarsuvius snapped their spellbook shut the second they knew no pages were damaged and slammed it onto the arm of the couch with so much force Durkon was worried they’d broken their own bones.

“I am aware of  _ exactly _ how much damage I have done, Draketooth. I was unaware at the time I cast the spell that your clan would be one of it’s victims, and that realization was one of the ones that would eventually lead to my reversing the spell. You’re under no obligation to forgive me, though I do apologize for all the harm I’ve caused. However, a simple glance around you will reveal that this town does not accept such things as your casual cruelty. I cannot begin to enumerate the friendships that rose from complete and utter  _ loathing _ on both sides-”

“I can,” Lien said, wearing a smile rather reminiscent of her shark mount’s teeth. She had one arm linked with Redcloak’s and the other with O-Chul’s- the two boys were quietly chatting about the anthropology of Southern culture as they also registered the danger of pissing Lien off right now.

Girard at least seemed to understand that Lien was not someone to anger right now as she plunked Redcloak and O-Chul down on the pews and came to stand next to Vaarsuvius, that very, very dangerous smile still fixed on her face.

Durkon smiled just a little, small enough to be hidden by his beard.

“Redcloak is the bearer of the Crimson Mantle, the person responsible for the fall of Azure City and the murders of everyone in the Sapphire Guard besides myself and O-Chul, and one of my best friends. Now, the town won’t expect you to do something like befriend them, but we’ve known Vaarsuvius far longer than we’ve known you and we know everything they’ve done and are still doing to atone for that spell, so if you pick a fight with them,  _ guess who’s side we’re taking _ .”

Girard’s eyes started glowing, the way they always did when he was murder-my-friends angry. Soon gave a curt sigh, grabbing his arm and yanking him out of hearing range of the small congregation around the couch, coming to a stop in front of the glazed clay statues of Marduk’s Clan, where the petrichor-spice-jasmine scent was strongest.

The sorcerer was  _ livid _ , but had always been good at hiding emotions from people who didn’t know him too well. Soon, fortunately, did know him too well, and was not letting effectively his last living proteges get killed over this.

“I’m not finding this very fair either- you are entitled to some bitchiness, and while some of that was uncalled for I don’t think the ganging up on the person who got brought back to life to find his entire family dead and his life’s work destroyed was the appropriate response.”

“Oh look at you, actually criticizing your students for once.”

Soon very pointedly fought off the tears threatening to gather in his eyes as he pulled the illusionist into a hug he, at least, very much needed.

“You could have  _ told me _ ,” the paladin whispered. 

“You could have been even remotely on my side for that,” the illusionist said numbly, and Soon hugged him tighter even though Girard didn’t hug him back.

“I don’t know how far they’re willing to go over this and I want to have some chance of negotiating with them if they decide we’re not worth the trouble.”

_ That _ got a very faint laugh out of the sorcerer, and Soon smiled, and Girard gave in and wrapped his arms around the paladin.

“You know this is  _ hell _ for me, right? It- the person who murdered the only people who had to lose my trust rather than earn it gets off scot free and I’m awful for calling them out on it.”

“I don’t think they got off as easy as you think they did, love.”

“Sure feels like it.”

As the two tightened their grips on each other, Roy and Inkyrius walked over to the couch group. Roy, being human, hadn’t heard their conversation about Vaarsuvius getting off easy, but Inkyrius, being an elf, had, and so they split off from the group and walked over to the Western Gods. After so long in the desert (about two years. There was the year that the Order spent sealing the gates, there were the two years that Highgate’s community tried to live in Cliffport, the two years of hell on the Western Continent, the year of traveling/building/figuring out how to turn a ragtag group of refugees into a town’s inhabitants, and then the four years of peace), the incense almost smelled like home.

“Be that as it may, you’ve both got issues. They cast the spell on my front lawn. I watched them do it to the ancient black dragon who had nailed me to a tree, destroyed my house, broke both of my kids’ legs, and was planning to murder me, murder and soulbind my children, and use both those facts to torture my at the time spouse to death. Was it a justified spell? No. Did they reverse it and continually try to fix their mistakes? Yes, though they’ve avoided me and the kids since, probably because they think we’re better off without them or something stupid like that.”

Girard pulled away from Soon, scrubbing at his eyes, and sighed.

“I know, I know, but-”

“In the future, refrain from murder or I’ll turn you into a pincushion because I’m the only person who gets to shoot my ex. They’re really defensive about the whole subject, and everyone knows it, so we don’t mention it and we don’t take too kindly to someone who does.”

“...I don’t… okay. Whatever. I’ll just- gods, whatever,” the illusionist muttered.

“If it makes you feel better, Suvie’s chewing them all out for interfering,” Lirian said, sauntering up to the small gathering.

“I’ll go help with that,” Inkyrius said. “Gods know it’s the only fuckin’ way they’ll talk to me.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah, I keep trying to and they keep paying Serini extra to buy their bread for them. The kids catch them a lot, though- I think Suvie’s still physically incapable of denying them anything.”

With that, Inkyrius walked off to help their ex yell at people, and was promptly replaced by Serini, Dorukan, and Lirian yanking Soon and Girard into a group hug.

“Whole gang’s back together,” Girard murmured.

“Gods help this town,” Dorukan replied.


	7. Whine and Dine

“Anyway, you two should be fine for now. Don’t fuck on my guest bed though,” Serini said, waving Soon and Girard into their temporary living situation in the back of Serini’s store/house.

“Should we be worried about visitors?” Soon asked.

“Nah. Roy’ll probably stop by, Lirian and Dory will too, and V and Redcloak might, but nobody here is going to come over just to yell at you. Half the relationships in this town are built on attempts of genocide, overcoming mutual hatred, declarations of war, and several hundred thousand murders. If they’re not pissed at Redcloak or Vaarsuvius or Jirix or anyone else who’s responsible for half the business a funeral home gets, they’re not pissed at you.”

“...I mean, fair.”

Soon sighed, setting his katana down on the weapons rack beside the door. Girard did the same for his swords, and then flopped facedown onto the bed with the most pathetic groan either of them had ever heard.

“I’m never getting up.”

Soon folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at the illusionist with his face mushed into a pillow.

“You’ll suffocate, darling.”

“So be it,  _ athear _ ,” came the muffled reply.

Serini sighed, shoved Soon towards his melancholy boyfriend, and turned to head back into the store to deal with the purple haired elves that would doubtlessly show up within a few minutes.

“I meant what I said about not fucking on my guest bed!”

Vaarsuvius walked into Serini’s store for the second time that week, wearing the I’m-such-an-idiot expression they always had when they paid Serini to buy bread from their ex because they felt too weird walking into Kyrie's Confections without Disguise Self on.

“Bread run?” The halfling said.

“Yes,” the elf replied.

“I assume their attempt to talk to you in the chapel was unsuccessful.”

“Of course it was. I committed genocide on their front lawn, do you truly think anyone capable of talking to somebody after that?”

“Zeus’ lightning, V, you have  _ got _ to get over this sooner or later.”

“I am confident in my ability to die first.”

“ _ NO. _ ”

Vaarsuvius was looking at everything in the room except Serini, which they did every time this happened, and Serini was letting them because they were kind of a mess when it came to their family (and according to Inkyrius and Aarindarius, they always had been).

“I’ll tell Aarindarius if you keep this up,” Serini said, and Vaarsuvius’ eyes instantly snapped to meet hers.

“I will empty every one of my coffers to ensure you have no reason to do so,” the elf said, and Serini knew they were dead serious and also that she wasn’t cruel.

“You cannot bribe me this time. It’s been ten years.  _ Talk to them _ .”

“No.”

“Do it.”

“I most certainly will not-”

“Will not what?”

Serini damn near hopped over the counter to kiss Aarindarius as he walked into the store. He and Lirian had been friends since high school, so when he joined the community that would eventually settle in Cliffport and then move to Highgate, the Order of the Scribble happily welcomed him. It was easy to see the influence he’d had on Vaarsuvius; he’d pretty much raised them, after all, and that came in handy when their parents died in Ivyleaf’s fight with Tarquin.

“V won’t-”

“Silence.”

Aarindarius raised an eyebrow at his student, who had just rather effectively shut the halfling up.

“Regardless of that situation, I’m here to tell you that Inkyrius wants to see you for dinner tonight, along with the Order including Redcloak, and that it isn’t a request on their part.”

Vaarsuvius opened their mouth, closed it, took a deep breath, and turned back to their mentor.

“How do I put this? Ah- fuck no.”

Aarindarius blinked with the kind of patience you could only gain as an elf who’d spent their entire life dealing with stubborn socially awkward children.

“What part of ‘not a request’ are you not understanding.”

“I am certain they shall have a more pleasant meal without my presence, and I am equally certain that if it should come down to it they do not have the ability to force me to come.”

Serini kind of wished she had popcorn for this. Vaarsuvius and Aarindarius could probably make bank as a traveling sitcom that did nothing but argue with each other.

Aarindarius raised an eyebrow and smiled demurely.

“I can,” he said, and Vaarsuvius said a few choice swears in Goblin that would have given Redcloak a stroke if he’d been present to hear them (which meant V had probably learned them from Jirix or Sill).

“ _ Why _ are you all so set upon bringing me back into a family that has gained everything from my leaving it?”

Silence reigned in the store. Aarindarius gave a very quiet groan as he pinched the bridge of his nose, and Serini let her forehead hit the countertop.

“We are never going to be able to convince you otherwise, are we?” Aarindarius muttered.

“No. You will not.”

Serini sighed, hobbling around the counter and over to Aarindarius so she could pat his waist.

“It’s okay. They’ll just have to be forcibly proven wrong at dinner tonight, which I’ve already roped both Orders and half the town into making you attend.”

This time the curse words were in Elvish, and Aarindarius’ ears instantly went flat against his skull when he heard them.


	8. Simpler Times

Vaarsuvius was deeply regretting not getting themselves killed in one of the Order’s many fights. It would have been easy; they were a  _ wizard _ , for the gods’ sakes, they could have perished tragically in the final battle with Xykon! Or died a noble death in the desert while saving the town (they’d almost done that, albeit unintentionally, and it was nothing short of a miracle Lien found them in time).

Even dying during the Fall of Azure City, or the permanent sealing of the Snarl, or at the hands of a godsdamned  _ kobold _ would leave them in a better headspace than this!

“V? Haley sent me over cause she said you were probably panicking.”

Elan was quite possibly one of the last people Vaarsuvius felt they  _ wanted _ to talk to, but they opened their front door regardless because anything was better than remembering who’s house they were heading to.

“Miss Starshine would be correct. This dinner was a ludicrous idea, and I would not be going at all were it not for the threats made by some of my closest friends!”

“Hey! V, it’s gonna be okay. No matter what genre this is things with Inky will turn out okay, I promise!”

“You cannot possibly prove that.”

“No, I can’t. But you can.”

Vaarsuvius tried very hard to be indignant at the bard’s statement, and found nothing but a warm fuzzy feeling in their chest. 

They sighed, Elan smiled, and the two of them set off towards Inkyrius’ house, Elan wearing a knowing smile the whole time.

The Order of the Stick as a whole cleaned up nicely. Vaarsuvius was wearing the only set of flows-like-water red silk robes they had (thank you, Haley and Serini), Roy was in a nice poofy shirt and a vest and pants, Haley was in an actual dress (gift from Kazumi), Elan looked kind of like the male protagonist of a Jane Austen novel, Durkon was wearing the same kind of outfit as Roy with added watch, Redcloak was wearing all black but still nicely dressed, and Belkar was wearing something that didn’t smell like blood.

Mr. Scruffy and Bloodfeast accompanied the halfling, and Blackwing was perched on Vaarsuvius’ shoulder. The elf’s hair was down to hide the fact that their ears were angled as far down and back as they could go (extremely voluminous thick wavy purple hair=elven equivalent of wearing a hood that hides your eyes).

“This will go great! I believe in us, guys!”

Elan’s positivity had quickly gone from warm fuzzy to kind of irritating, and Vaarsuvius sidled up between Roy and Redcloak.

“I presume Celia is still on that shoplifting case for Hilgya?”

“Yeah. I maintain that out of our six lawyers she’s the best- I think Hilgya’s starting to believe me, despite that whole ‘I’m officially a seamstress because the crime rate in this town is shit almost nonexistent’.”

“I concur. She outright refused my current occupation of tracking the laws of this town so that none might accuse her of altering them- you chose a rather intelligent woman.”

“And she chose a rather intelligent tank, for which I will forever be glad.”

“If you two are done chatting, I’d like to cross the street and get this over with,” Redcloak muttered, rubbing his arms. “It’s freezing. I still don’t know why Lirian’s letting the snow in.”

“It’s a mere few inches,” Vaarsuvius said. “I am certain you shall survive.”

“I am a  _ reptile _ .”

“And master Thundershield is possessed of the spells to keep you alive, I am certain.”

Redcloak glared, and Vaarsuvius raised an eyebrow. The seven of them were loitering the street from Inkyrius’ house. It was about seven (the sun had set ten minutes or so ago), and the snowfall silence remained unbroken despite the lights shining in the windows of the rest of the houses.

“You know, if we didn’t have to watch you try to avoid your ex in their own house, this’d be a pretty great night,” Belkar said.

“I can and will cast Silence on you.”

“What, no Explosive Runes?”

“I would be forced to cast it on your plate, and I am certain that then Inkyrius  _ would  _ kill me. And hire Celia to get away with it.”

The Order was supposed to be crossing the street five minutes ago, because dinner was at seven and several epic-level adventurers were making the seven of them go, and this changed approximately nothing about the fact that the only people in Highgate who couldn’t actually say three words to Inkyrius were Vaarsuvius and Redcloak.

Roy sighed, standing in front of his party.

“Alright, gang. We’ve gotta do this one way or another, so let’s do it with dignity. Marching order.”

Everyone gave a small smile at that. The nostalgia of it was undeniable- a carry over from simpler times, when their only job was crawling a dungeon and defeating a lich and dividing the treasure afterwards.

First Roy, then Durkon, then Haley, then Elan, then Vaarsuvius, then Redcloak, and then Belkar walked across the street, snow crunching softly under the same well-worn boots they’d walked through four dungeons and several iterations of hell on earth on.

After everything else, the seven of them could get through this.


	9. Getting Warmer

Belkar had thought he was  _ kidding _ . Belkar was very wrong. The moment the Order entered, Vaarsuvius slipped from marching order to hiding behind Roy and Redcloak (which was pretty easy given that they were the two tallest party members). 

“...oh no,” Haley murmured, watching Vaarsuvius’ hair swish in a way that could be mistaken for a draft in the house but that she knew meant their ears were flicking around wildly beneath the thick purple waves, the way their ears always went everywhere when they had absolutely no idea how to feel about anything.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Elan ‘whispered’, and Haley damn near smacked the elf when their hand went to their pocket and she saw that they’d brought their spellbook.

“If you cast Invisibility or Expeditious Retreat or anything else and try to escape this I will set Aarindadrius on you and get Durkon to resurrect your parents so I can set them on you, too.”

Vaarsuvius glared, but Haley could still see the nervousy in their golden eyes. She tucked a stray wisp of purple hair back underneath the thin gold circlet she’d found them years ago after they defeated Xykon for the last time- when Vaarsuvius had cast Identify on the thin gold band with a tiny pink diamond set into it, they’d gone white as a sheet. 

The Circlet of All Seeing was lovely, even if the final battle with Tarquin had dispelled it’s magic. It was a good look on them.

“You’re a war criminal in twenty seven countries that don’t exist anymore, a genocidal maniac who managed to fix all two million six hundred thousand and fifty three of their mistakes, an elf who is best friends with a goblin, and arguably one of the most powerful wizards alive. You’ll live,” Redcloak deadpanned, pushing the elf in front of him. 

“We should probably stop loitering in the entrance hall,” Elan said, and everyone immediately turned to Vaarsuvius.

“...what?” The elf asked. “Surely you cannot think I know anything about this house. I barely know anything about the bakery, and I pass it on my way to the library daily.”

Haley sighed, made an executive decision, and led the party further into Inkyrius’ house.

Turns out Inkyrius had been listening the whole time, because they could  _definitely_ hear that whole exchange from the dining room. Elari and Nethel were seated at the dining room table already, and the second Haley entered the room she could tell that they were practically vibrating in place. Inkyrius, standing between the dining table and the door Haley had just walked through, raised an eyebrow.

Haley’s hand shot out and snagged a bony wrist. Vaarsuvius cursed very quietly in Goblin as their invisibility was dispelled. 

The actual second that Haley finished shoving them into the room, their children effectively launched themselves at the wizard. Vaarsuvius went down  _ hard _ under the onslaught of two very excited elven twins- Haley winced as she heard them hit the floor with a small hiss of pain.

“OtherParentOtherParentOtherParent! You came! Uncle Aarindarius said you might be busy but you came!”

The Order of the Stick watched their wizard completely melt as their children kept talking over each other and fighting over who was more excited to see them. Redcloak sighed quietly- he would b e putting up with Vaarsuvius’ increased self-loathing for the next three days. At least.

Haley smiled at Inkyrius.

“Thank you very much for inviting all of us.”

“Thanks for making Vaarsuvius come.”

“Anything to watch them suffer,” Belkar said, rubbing his hands together with poorly-concealed glee.

Inkyrius raised an eyebrow. Haley kicked the halfling to remind him that this was the elf who spent so much time lifting flour sacks that, according to Vaarsuvius, they’d been able to carry them with one arm and mix brownie batter with the other, and had been able to do so without coming anywhere near breaking a sweat.

Haley could see it- despite Inkyrius’ loose clothes, a style that seemed popular with elves, it was very, very obvious that they could probably pick her up and throw her at her husband from a block away.

How the hell had Vaarsuvius managed to leave home at  _ all _ ?

Elan put his arm around Haley’s waist, likewise staring at Inkyrius with a face that meant he’d just realized exactly how hot Vaarsuvius’ ex was.

“Ah- Elari, Nethel, I would like to get off the floor at some point,” Vaarsuvius said. The children, who had firmly attached themselves to either side of the wizard, did not move.

Golden eyes turned pleadingly to slit-pupil yellow ones. Redcloak smirked, folded his arms, and did not move.

Durkon stifled a laugh badly, met Vaarsuvius’ glare head-on, and also did not move.

“I fail to see how I am supposed to eat dinner from here. Elari, get your hand out of my pocket,” they said, gently swatting their green-haired child’s curious fingers away from their spellbook.

“But we missed you,” Nethel whispered, too quietly for anyone but Redcloak and Inkyrius to hear.

“And you never even visit anymore and- are you angry? Did we do something bad?” Elari added, and Redcloak, who’d been staring at this whole exchange to keep an eye on Vaarsuvius, could pinpoint the exact moment the elf’s heart snapped cleanly in half. Again.

The rest of the Order was crowded around Inkyrius and chatting- even Durkon. Redcloak was the only one of them hearing this, besides maybe Inkyrius.

“No.  _ No _ . I- I was afraid. It was not you, little ones, it was never your fault. None of this was. I made bad decisions and I was afraid of how you would react to me afterwards, and I was afraid of how your Parent would react as well, and- gods.  _ It was never you _ . Know that none of this was ever your fault.”

Redcloak’s eyes watered when he didn’t sleep. He’d been out cold for nine hours forgetting about the stupid paladin and the stupid sorcerer and all the bullshit their arrival had caused. Clearly it was just the lack of sleep.

“I think-” the goblin murmured “-that we should eat, and that after we eat, six out of seven of us should leave.”

Vaarsuvius stared at the ceiling the way they did when they weren’t actually looking at anything. 

“...I am less opposed to the idea now than I was five minutes ago,” they murmured, wrapping both of their kids up into as much of a hug as they could manage while flat on their back on the floor.

“Good,” the goblin replied.

“Are you gonna come live with us again?”

“FOOD! Food sounds great! I am very hungry don’t worry I won’t eat you!” Recloak said, clapping his hands together and (finally) helping Vaarsuvius out from under their children and off the floor. It seemed the Order had kept Inkyrius sufficiently distracted, which was good- Vaarsuvius could probably handle Inkyrius or the kids. Not both. Not now.

Dinner passed with what was honestly a shocking amount of uneventful. The worst thing Belkar did was get smacked by Durkon and Redcloak for trying to teach V’s kids bad habits, and the only thing Haley stole was the spotlight from Vaarsuvius. Elan sang one song and thank all the gods it was one of his good ones. Roy got a nice break from being in charge not only of five dumbasses, but a whole town full of them. 

Elari and Nethel kept sneaking their vegetables onto Inkyrius’ plate without the baker noticing, and Vaarsuvius cast a simple Mage Hand every time and moved the vegetables back, and then the twins gave small squees of delight, and Inkyrius looked up, and Vaarsuvius pretended they hadn’t done a thing even though the baker could see them pocketing their spellbook.

Dinner passed, dessert passed, and in all that time Vaarsuvius hadn’t spoken to their ex once. 

“So tell me about these two strangers that Serini’s housing,” Inkyrius said, when the conversation had awkwardly died off, and was instantly met with groans (Roy, Belkar, Redcloak, Haley), sharp winces (Elan, Durkon), and the sound of Vaarsuvius’ head meeting the tabletop.

Silence reigned.

“...that bad, huh.”

“Not even close,” Haley muttered.

“They jumped on us as we were reinforcing the shields literally  _ right _ before we were done with Lirian’s Gordian Lock, and it was the third time we’d had to restart the spell,” Redcloak added.

“An’ tha illusionist attacked Redcloak- Ahm not sure why, exactly, V decided tha jumpin’ in front o’ tha spell were a good idea, but they did.”

“Probably because they had a big character development moment as the person who’d always been at the back of the fight who finally decided to take a hit for a family member rather than save their own skin. It’s a really great way to show the level of friendship and camaraderie!”

“I mean, Redcloak’s basically their big brother so I for one am not too shocked,” Belkar said.

Vaarsuvius’ golden eyes immediately snapped to Redcloak’s face. Durkon, sitting next to the goblin, put a hand on his forearm. In former days, it would have been to stop him from blasting Belkar- now, it was just a comfort. 

Roy looked very confused, as did Haley and Elan.

“That’s fair,” the goblin said in a strangled voice that, thank all the gods, nobody commented on.

“I have no idea how the hell I’m supposed to keep people from losing their shit when they find out that Soon and Girard found the town,” Roy said.

“Misinform the populace into believing that you allowed their party to contact them.”

Everyone paused to stare at Vaarsuvius. Belkar had his ‘I knew it’ face on- Roy looked vaguely unnerved, and Redcloak looked unsurprised.

“I keep forgetting that your charisma is the only reason you aren’t a politician,” Inkyrius said, and that neatly spiraled the conversation into an argument first over who would be the best politician (Haley), second on whether Roy should take V’s advice or not (he decided he would just because it would cause less harm than the mass panic), and third on the moral implications of hating geese despite the fact that everyone in the room agreed that they were definitely sent from hell.

In the end, Vaarsuvius left when the party did, but they hugged Inkyrius before running out the door (the elf had gotten much better with physical affection, including realizing that they actually liked it) and they promised that if the twins came to the library the next morning, they’d have something waiting for them.

“It’s gonna be those two Bags of Holding you’ve spent years filling with every goddamn book and toy and trinket you saw that you thought they’d like, isn’t it?” Belkar said.

“Of course not. I am in possession of six, not two.”


	10. Best Foot Forward

Girard woke up the next morning feeling about as good as Soon looked. Both of them had spent last night tossing and turning and waking up in cold sweats- Girard had woken up at one point and had to stop the paladin from going for his sword.

All in all, better than they’d been, worse than they’d hoped.

“What’s the plan today?” Soon murmured, pouring a little Lay On Hands into Girard’s bruised knuckles from where he’d dream-punched his red-eyed reflection in a Mirror of Opposition and had actually punched the wall.

That dungeon had not been fun. He’d fought himself, lost, and then watched his double impale Serini and actually kill Soon. Lirian had bought diamonds earlier that week, but Girard never quite got over the sound of the paladin’s katana clattering to the stone floor and his body hitting it shortly after.

“...fix our respective mistakes? Start on it, at least? I’d like to get a full night’s sleep at some point.”

“So, I’m stopping by the chapel,” Soon said, and his voice sounded so worn and the paladin looked so tired that Girard almost regretted coming to the stupid town in the first place.

“And I’m heading to the library,” the illusionist finished.

They shared one of their ‘we’re both gonna die aren’t we’ looks, and decided that five more minutes couldn’t hurt. Girard almost started purring, but then the paladin would be asleep, and he was hardly going to sentence Soon to another round of nightmares.

Neither of them could quite get rid of the lingering dread of what the day would bring, even wrapped up in each other and Serini’s obscenely soft sheets (the halfling had always been one for comfort, no matter how expensive).

“I don’t want to go alone,” Soon murmured.

“I don’t either.”

“But we have to, or it won’t… it won’t work.”

“Yeah,” Girard said.

Twenty minutes later, the illusionist stood outside Highgate’s library, staring at the double doors carved with the familiar scrawl of arcane runes. It was a pretty building- the  _ Mechanae Cafe _ , built in and around and out of the airship that finally fallen from the sky right as the group arrived at the pole, sat next to it, and a park was on the other side, but the library managed to be elegant and regal without being snobby. A set of stone stairs led up from the sidewalk, and those became a somewhat winding path that took you through the quiet library gardens (littered with tables and benches and little hidden spots that the town’s kids probably had way too much fun with), and all the way up to the doors Girard now stood in front of, set into a dark mahogany and cool grey stone building that was mostly composed of three large domed structures stuck together.

The illusionist pushed them open, and was instantly hit with the smell of books and the sight of what could have been a goddamn palace.

Frescoes covered the ceiling, tapestries and paintings hung from the walls, statues and exotic plants were placed tastefully amidst towering bookshelves and low tables surrounded by elegant furniture with deep red cushioning and bronze accent pillows, all of which looked obscenely comfortable.

But the  _ shelves _ .

Towering nearly up to the high ceiling, so many that Girard did not doubt he could quite easily get lost, and packed-  _ packed _ \- with books.

There had to be thousands in this room alone, and he hadn’t even entered the two other likewise domed structures.

“Holy  _ shit _ ,” he breathed, and because he barely saw intact art but he loved it anyway, Girard started exploring the art pieces before the books, because the art was at least semi-easy but the books would ensure he fell asleep in here out of sheer exhaustion, likely after three days of nothing but reading.

The frescoes on the ceiling were gorgeous, and had nothing to do with him, for which he was very grateful. The great cities of the Western Continent, the treehouse colonies of the Elven lands, the massive halls of the dwarves and the homely lands of the halflings. The gnomish capitol, full of gadgetry, and the massive racial and cultural melting pot that was Greyhawk. Goblin towns, orcish camps, Azure city, Menzoberranzan, Blingdenstone, Sandsedge…

It was beautiful.

The statues were of various scholars, wizards and bards and authors and others who had doubtlessly made some contribution to the knowledge of the world. The tapestries were of creatures- unicorns, phoenixes, dragons, aboleths, merfolk. 

It was the paintings that got him, though. 

The gods, creating the world, sealing away the Snarl. The  _ Mechanae _ laying siege to Tarquin’s castle. The Order of the Stick facing down the Vector Legion and the Empress of Blood. The Order of the Scribble creating the gates, Redcloak and Durkon and Lien and Veldrina sealing the rifts once more. Vaarsuvius and Redcloak undoing Familicide. The founding of the town. Xykon's defeat.

Finally, having nearly circled the entirety of the massive room, Girard arrived at the last set of paintings.

Seven total, and he picked out a great many ‘artistic liberties’, with no shortage of bitter amusement.

Lirian creating the Refuge. Dorukan building his dungeon. Serini building Kraagor’s Tomb. The Order of the Scribble splitting up in the first place. Kraagor’s statue, ‘Sacrifice Forgotten’ written on the pedestal, standing the same way it stood now in the town square. Soon founding the Sapphire Guard, and finally, Girard building the temple with his family.

They hadn’t gotten anybody’s eyes right. His hand glowed purple where he rested it on the frame, and a tiny illusion rune scorched into the bottom of it fixed that.

His family wasn’t staring out of the painting. It was one of those horribly poetic ones, full of symbolism and dramatic gestures as he stood on the foundation of the temple, in front of the shining white stone of his Gate. 

Kanta’s hair had flowed that much, but she never would have looked at him so seriously (she hadn’t). Tiran was too young, and Sami too old, and it was all wrong wrong  _ wrong _ .

It was so wrong.

They had been Resurrected, every last one of them, young and hot and agile again. Girard had never expected to come back to life, much less outside of his coffin, much less in the middle of the desert. 

His family coughed up sand and dust around him, and he and Tiran and Kanta and Sami shared a glance, and then the sound of a portal opening met their ears.

The Vector Legion, he would later discover, had been the one to attack them, while they were on their knees, in the sand, resurrected minutes before.

A man he would learn to be General Tarquin had stood before the army, pointed at Girard, clueless and lost, just after he'd finished coughing up dust, and had said ‘kill everyone besides him’.

And they had.

So much blood was spilled that it started running in streams, carving paths in the sand as some fought and all lost. 

Of him and his three siblings, Sami was the last born, and the first dead. She'd stepped up, put herself between the family and their foes and tried to talk things out like she always did, and gotten an arrow to the throat for it. Tiran, infuriated, roared a battle cry, because nobody hurt his family. Nobody.

Redheaded bodies hit the ground all around them, as people found they couldn't teleport out of the antimagic field Tarquin had brought, or arrows found their marks or swords grazed a little too deep or-

Girard found himself yanked to his feet, and turned wide blue eyes to warm brown ones that were full of so much rage he flinched. Kanta turned, hand still locked around his arm, and started sprinting, leaving Girard no choice but to follow at a dead run.

"Wh- wait, wait Kanta wait we can't leave them behind- Tiran, he's still-"

Kanta didn't slow down and neither did he as they started talking, as the sounds of a fight faded and died behind them.

"I already talked to Tiran. For whatever fucking reason that dickwad with the armor wants you, and he's not getting you. There were fourteen of us left when I fucking grabbed you and Tiran stayed to buy us time because fuck if we aren't Draketooths and fuck if that asshole is getting what he wants without it costing him everything but his soul."

"But-" 

"Girard. I'm in hell right now. I've had nightmares that start like this, and I am not letting them end the way they always do. You're going to be okay."

They kept running.

It was a half an hour later that Kanta finally slowed, and Girard looked up to find the sunset staining every golden grain of sand in that thrice damned dessert as red as his family's blood. He was alive, for the first time in decades, and he'd just run at top speed for a half hour or so without stopping, and carrying-

He had all his gear.

Twin swords, backpack, everything down to an embroidered pouch full of the buttons Serini had given him before the party split on his belt, but the clothes were unfamiliar and much nicer than his usual wear (and that was saying something). 

"You're wearing all the shit we buried you in. I can't believe I died in this dress," Kanta said, and she had that look on her face where she was trying to stop him from thinking long enough to ask questions. It was the same look she'd worn when his mother died, when people left and she figured out they weren't coming back, when he lost another love to those stupid fucking wars.

"We- what-  _ why _ -"

Girard had collapsed, right then, and Kanta had caught him, and the two had kept walking because they had no choice, Tarquin had horses and his anti-divination charm was wrapped around Orrin's wrist.

Girard had sobbed, quietly and with the unseeing eyes of someone completely, utterly broken, for the whole night, as the two of them had kept walking in some hope that those red streams weren't flowing in vain. His son was dead, some soldier's axe gone right through his chest. His older brother, his little sister, aunts and uncles and cousins however many times removed, people he'd known, people he'd waved at when he came down to breakfast and the kids who had pestered him for stories and the grandparents who had told him he still had work to do with his magic even as powerful as he was and the peers and the parents and the children and they were all  _ dead _ .

Kanta didn't shed a tear. She hadn't when her father died, she hadn't when her mother died. Kanta never cried over deaths- she avenged them. She picked up and kept going because that was all she could do.

Two days of walking with a few snatched catnaps had them arriving at the camp of a traveling caravan, who'd taken one look at the older sister with all the fires of hell in her eyes and the younger brother staring at nothing and offered them a spot by the fire. The two bartered for some traveling supplies and split.

Turned out that Kanta had gotten wounded in the battle, smacked in the side by a warhammer. It had broken a rib and sent a little piece of bone clean through one of her lungs.

It took her three days to bleed out, and the last one was spent holding onto her as she coughed up blood and wishing for a healing potion or Lirian or even Soon fucking Kim to fall into their tent and make this better, and Girard had been so sure he'd wake up.

He'd been so sure it was all a bad dream.

Kanta was buried on a nameless day, in a nameless spot, and Girard had taken lightning to the sand around him and let the resulting glass serve as a headstone because he couldn't afford to carry her body and she'd told him to leave her corpse behind anyway and who was he to ignore his sister's dying wish?

The last living Draketooth, third out of four and now one out of one, picked up, and kept going, because Kanta would never forgive herself for dying on him if he didn't. It was two weeks before he made it to Sandsedge, and when he spotted the outgoing ships to the Southern Continent, he'd booked himself passage without a second thought.

Girard had expected to be recognized when he arrived in Azure City, but he hadn't expected it to take ten seconds.

"Girard!?"

It was Soon. Of course it was Soon, of course the Guard had resurrected him. He looked as young as Girard did- mid to late thirties, max. He was standing next to the man Girard presumed to be the Lord of the City- Hinjo, if his guess was right.

"You look remarkably good for someone who isn't supposed to be here," the paladin said, and he had raised an eyebrow and he was such an asshole and on any other day Girard might have rolled his eyes but it was this day, and so he didn't.

"Fuck you. Fuck the gates. Fuck the Snarl and the gods and fuck me for joining that goddamn party in the first place when I should have stayed the hell away from all of you," Girard snarled, and he could feel his eyes flash purple and his magic snap around his white knuckles and that black dragon growl rise in his throat.

Hinjo jumped, and so did his guards, but Soon just blinked, and sighed, and frowned as he took in Girard's haggard appearance. The illusionist not having slept in days didn't bother Soon- that was typical Girard whether it was paranoia or excitement or Serini keeping him up. The illusionist  _ looking _ like he hadn't slept in days was what had him worried- if Girard couldn't even manage a cantrip to fix the dark circles then something was very wrong.

"You need sleep."

"No shit."

"And food. Tea, I think, would do you the most good right now."

"If you don't stop talking in the next five seconds I'm going to punch you and I'm going to win the ensuing fistfight."

Hinjo was watching this exchange with the kind of dumbfounded surprise you got only from watching two living legends famous for hating each other bicker like a married couple. 

"You  _ definitely _ need tea. I've got several spare bedrooms since the Sapphire guard has apparently been reduced to three people in my absence."

"I would literally rather-"

"Sleep in the street, yes, shut up or I'll smite you."

With that, Soon had grabbed Girard's arm and promptly dragged him to the newly renovated palace. Girard hadn’t run away or tried to kill him in the middle of the night, and when Soon had spent two days pointedly noticing that neither of these things had happened he decided the illusionist had had enough space and they needed to talk, anyway.

He’d found Girard staring out the window, tears running down his cheeks, a cup of Soon’s favorite tea (a recipe he’d gotten from Lirian, way back when before the name made something painful clench in his chest) in one of the four mismatched cups Serini had given him before her name did the same thing Lirian’s did, cradled in his hands. 

Lirian and Serini and Dorukan’s names hurt differently than Kraagor’s did. Those three were alive, somewhere, there was the chance that they were okay and happy and better off without him. Kraagor- Kraagor was gone. Kraagor hurt the way his inability to protect Mijung had.

But Girard’s name had hurt the same way that  _ losing _ Mijung had, it had echoed in his chest whenever someone said it and it had twisted a knife there at the same time. Losing Mijung had been hell, and Soon was pretty sure the only reason losing Girard hurt less was because the illusionist was still alive.

He’d sat, leaning on the doorframe and watching Girard stare out the window, wondering if the illusionist even knew he was there until Girard spoke.

“They’re dead.”

“Who?”

“The Draketooths. I’m the last living one.”

Soon’s grey eyes had widened, because he’d only met them once and only for a couple weeks but he’d known Girard’s family had been  _ big _ (and it had been so nice when they’d been scouring the desert for the rift and Girard had written to his mother and the Draketooth clan had descended like a flock of saviors on them. The five of them had been surprised- they hadn’t realized Girard never lost the tension in his shoulders until he’d hugged his siblings and he had).

“...do you want me to ask how?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

The two of them had watched the rainclouds build over the ocean, the same hurricane grey as Soon’s eyes, from the top of a tower in a castle in a city that Girard had sworn he’d never set foot in again.

Girard had stayed, because he had nowhere else to go, and Soon had asked him, five days later, what he was running from.

And, like an idiot, Girard had told him. 

Of course, Soon was Soon, and so it wasn’t long before Girard fell in love with him (again) and it wasn’t much longer before the paladin kissed him (again, although Soon had no memory of the first time. Or, rather, he did, but the plan had involved not telling Soon what the plan was, and Soon had agreed to said plan despite knowing that for it to work they couldn’t tell him, and so the paladin hadn’t known he was kissing his second in command instead of a nice brown haired elven duke. It had been nice to find out the paladin was into guys, though).

It had been strange to realize that out of everyone Girard knew, Soon had the best chance of relating to his predicament. No father (though that hadn’t been much of a loss), no mother ( _ that _ had. Girard had stayed with Soon’s mother for six weeks with the rest of the party as they wrangled the nobility into letting them seal the Azure City rift), no siblings or cousins or aunts or uncles left either.

Law and Chaos having nobody to turn to but each other. Who’d have thought?

The illusionist blinked, jolted, stumbled, and suddenly he was back in a library, on plush carpets and hardwood floors, staring at the painting he’d decided he was going to avoid for the rest of his life.

Girard inhaled, and exhaled, and kept doing that until he felt less like his magic was going to eat him from the inside out if he didn’t calm down (it wouldn’t, but that didn’t make his magic’s reaction to panic attacks any less horrible).

He was about to turn and resume his quest to maybe fix things with the elf but probably get threatened with grievous bodily harm by all their friends instead when he heard the sound of many books falling all at once (made familiar because one of Dorukan’s many hobbies was book shopping but for the first few months of the Order of the Scribble’s existence he was too prideful to make the rest of the party carry them for him).

Girard closed his eyes, silently swore in eleven languages, and turned around to see Vaarsuvius.

“...Sir Draketooth.”

“Vaarsuvius,” he replied, and started helping the elf pick up the books. “The library is gorgeous, and I’ve only seen this room so far.”

Girard didn’t comment on the fact that their hands were shaking, and they didn’t comment on the fact that Girard’s entire body was shaking, so it was good.

The awkward silence stretched as Girard and Vaarsuvius re-shelved the books, until Girard finally couldn’t take it anymore and decided fuck it, being blunt has never, not once in history, worked out well for him, but the illusionist would never claim a good mental state to people he was trying to be honest with.

“I don’t- I don’t think I’m ever going to forgive you, but I’m very much willing to bury the hatchet and move on regardless.”

Vaarsuvius paused, sliding the last book into it’s spot on the shelf.

“...I… I suppose I am… willing to attempt the same.”

“...really? Cause, uh, you’re self loathing vibe seems pretty contradictory to that.”

The elf’s bright golden eyes snapped to meet Girard’s ice blue ones, and Vaarsuvius’ ears twitched. 

“You are rather intent on assuming you know my reasons.”

“It takes one to know one. I haven’t slept peacefully since I was ten.”

Vaarsuvius closed their eyes, and all of the pride that had been holding them up like scaffolding collapsed, all at once. Girard wasn’t totally sure what the hell he was supposed to do, so he settled for putting a hand on the elf’s shoulder and guiding them to one of the obscenely comfortable chairs nearby.

Girard sat down across from them, and stared at the glass-covered wood carvings in the low table between them, waiting for Vaarsuvius to lift their head out of their hands.

The elf’s shoulders were shaking, and the illusionist glanced between them and the table before snapping his fingers,  _ already _ knowing he’d regret this. 

A russet red Somali cat appeared in Vaarsuvius’ lap, and the illusionist recalled that with him and Soon moving to Highgate, Orina would actually get to stick around rather than lounge in the pocket dimension Girard had created for her.

He ducked his head so his hair fell forward to hide his smile. Shortly before he boarded the ship to Azure City, he’d purchased the materials to get a familiar, something he hadn’t done in the entirety of his first life. Orina was a cat, and her fur was slightly darker than Kanta’s hair but it was the exact same shade as Orrin’s, and that made something  _ really fucking painful _ clench in his chest, which was probably why he’d given her the name Orrin might have had if he’d been a girl.

Orina didn’t speak Common, which may have been his volatile emotional state bleeding into his magic or may have been the gods taking pity on him, but the only humanoid language she knew was Draconic.

Again, equal parts nice and painful.

Vaarsuvius jumped out of their skin when Orina appeared on their lap, but eventually they settled their hands into petting the cat on their lap. Her fur was softer than clouds and she was  _ so fucking fluffy _ that Girard had momentarily mistaken her for a teddy bear given life. 

And, y’know. She purred like those lawnmower things gnomes liked to use. So. Bonus.

“...is she your familiar?”

“Orina. Yes. She is.”

Vaarsuvius’ face was tear-stained, and Girard felt something raw and broken resonate in his chest.

“...I- I don’t- I…  _ fuck _ , why is this so hard to find words for?”

The elf in front of him looked up, ears lifting ever so slightly as they listened.

Girard took a breath, and once more decided to be blunt, because there really was just no good way to do this.

“They’re dead. They’re all dead. When- when you brought us back, Tarquin was still alive. He found us, the temple was gone and so were all our spells and he was- he was  _ waiting _ . He’d been waiting. And. Well. I’m the last living Draketooth, long story short, and I swear if you try to make that your fucking fault I’m ratting you out to Haley and Serini.”

Vaarsuvius blinked, tensed, and relaxed as they kept petting Orina, because you just couldn’t stay tense while petting Orina.

“...you care. Why?” Vaarsuvius asked. Their eyes were trained squarely on him, and Girard had a feeling that not a lot was going to escape that gaze.

“Not sure I know, but I don’t really give a damn either way. You were much easier to hate when you were a faceless wizard who didn’t have friends or other accomplishments or a conscience, you know.”

The elf cracked a smile. Girard counted it a win.

“Familicide was survivable until I found your temple, so I believe us to be even, Sir Draketooth.”

Girard himself smiled, and Vaarsuvius also counted it a win. For a time, the two simply enjoyed the cushion and Orina’s lawn mower purrs.

“YOU’RE  _ CHEATING _ ON ME!?”

Vaarsuvius, who had almost fallen into a trance, and Girard, who’d felt the most semi-peaceful he’d been in his life, almost fell off their armchairs when Blackwing screeched, and were somewhat comforted when Aarindarius’ smooth, light voice floated through the stacks right after the raven flew up to Vaarsuvius.

“You-” he said, in accented Common and with a nod to Vaarsuvius “-are much easier to explain things to than your familiar.”

“Oh, this is gonna be fucking hilarious,” Girard muttered, and was reminded moments later that the other two people in the room were elves when both Aarindarius and Vaarsuvius’ ears angled backwards- not enough to be ‘Lirian’s committing murder’ flat against their heads, but enough that Girard got the small zing of sadistic joy he felt every time he pissed someone off by being funny.

“ _ Pothoc baeshra _ ,” Orina said, hopping lightly off Vaarsuvius’ lap (which Blackwing promptly fell into, loudly claiming he was going to faint) and walking daintily accross the table to Girard, who immediately picked her up and happily started running his fingers through thick, soft, fluffy fur.

“_Axun_, _shar jaci_ _tepohaic ekess tepoha letocloa persvek creol idol_,” Girard murmured in return.

Aarindarius’ ears flicked back and forth between angling backwards and angling sideways. Vaarsuvius’ twitched- the elf was looking at him with their usual pride again, which was… probably good.

Maybe.

“ _ Wux vucot si renthisj Vs’shtak, harkt? _ ”

Vaarsuvius’ lips quirked upwards into a faint,  _ extremely _ smug smile as Girard grinned. Their mentor had  _ no  _ clue what was going on, beyond the fact that Vaarsuvius (apparently) spoke Draconic. They were going back and forth with Girard so quickly that Aarindarius eventually just gave up- it was all consonants, and was starting to grate on his ears, anyway.

“Well, you’re doing fine, and I’ve got cream puffs waiting for me and your children to thank for that.  _ Uuma dela, Selu’Taar _ .”

“ _ Namaarie _ ,” Vaarsuvius murmured, and Girard brightened as he realized that that was one of the three words of Elvish he knew (it meant ‘farewell’).

Vaarsuvius was absentmindedly petting Blackwing, and they tilted their head as they regarded Girard.

“ _ Tir wux renthisj vaecaesin? _ ” They asked, after a moment of silence.

“ _ Fogah lexri di coi _ ,” Girard replied wryly.

The elf smiled, switching back to Common.

“Perhaps I can teach you Elvish. And perhaps together we can finally get the others to stop letting the library’s Draconic translation dictionaries collect dust.”

Girard smiled, sinking his fingers a little deeper into Orina’s fur. He hadn’t expected to become instant friends with the elf, but he also hadn’t expected to come back to life in the first place or start dating Soon, so…

Well. They were even.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Draconic translator I used for this: https://draconic.twilightrealm.com/
> 
> Aarindarius' goodbye to V roughly translates to 'don't worry, High Mage'. It's been for fucking ever since I've posted anything! I hate being busy, but I love cats, so... behold Orina.


	11. All the Best Bad Choices

Soon walked into the chapel before most of the churchgoing crowd did, bowing to each of the pantheons as he passed them. He couldn’t tell if it was out of respect or if he was stalling, but eventually he wound his way to the front of the chapel.

Redcloak had been silent since the doors opened. Soon wondered if that keen nose had smelled incense and armor and the wax of twelve melted candles all the way down the street.

“Lien and O-Chul won’t be here for another ten minutes,” the goblin eventually murmured.

“I wasn’t here to speak with them.”

Redcloak stood, turning to face Soon as he blew out the lone black candle currently at the front altar and set it inside a cabinet full of likewise half melted candles. He started pulling out twelve white ones, and Soon, at a loss for anything else to do, helped him set up the meditation circle for the Twelve Gods.

“...is… did the Crimson Mantle… survive my… genocide?” Soon asked, grasping for literally anything to break the suffocating silence. Redcloak set down the twelfth candle with a decisive  _ thunk _ .

“Yes, it did. The Mantle’s power is gone now, though. I had to use up the magic to reverse Familicide, do  _ not _ tell Vaarsuvius or anyone else, for that matter. They just think I’m letting it sit.”

It was a matter of gods and a matter of honor, and Soon understood both of those things.

“Of course not. It- it was noble of you. To sacrifice such power for a friend. I know how hard that must have been.”

Redcloak didn’t argue, and Soon didn’t get the chance to say anything more as the goblin walked away, because Lien and O-Chul walked through the front doors right at that moment.

Soon stared at Lien and O-Chul. Lien and O-Chul stared at Soon.

“...thank you,” Soon said. “For fixing the mistakes I could not admit.”

Lien and O-Chul nodded, and before he could make this any worse, Soon walked out of the chapel and into the snow-dusted streets of Highgate. It was, as usual, bustling, people getting breakfast before going to work or church or school. The chapel was on the town’s main street, along with the Cozy Kato Inn and Tavern, Firehelm Magics, the small clinic, the town forge, Kyrie’s Confections, Serini’s store, and a hell of a lot more.

Soon had the money to burn, and he was staying for a while, so… why the hell not.

The paladin set out down the bustling main street, past market stalls and little carts and a great many people all dressed for the wintertime. Goblins, humans, elves, halflings, gnomes… Soon was pretty sure that every single race was living in this town. He bought a rose for Girard, and a necklace for Serini, and after that the paladin settled for wandering.

It was a market morning, and everyone was out and about and buying and selling, and there were so many damn people in the street that Soon wasn’t surprised when he walked right into someone.

The goblin stumbled, righting himself at the last minute. He had a patch over his left eye, and he looked so…

Oh.

_ Fuck _ .

Soon knew it was far too late to hide his silvery plate or bright blue cloak as Right-Eye shook himself and finally noticed him. The goblin’s bright eyes widened, an expression Soon knew to be mirrored on his own face.

“... _ you _ ,” Right-Eye said.

“I- I’m sorry. It doesn’t fix anything and it’s worthless, but I am,” Soon stammered. 

“Yeah. I know. It’s not you I’m here for.”

“...then… who  _ are _ you here for?”

“What is generally the first thing on a murder victim’s mind after they’re Rezzed?” Right-Eye asked, and Soon winced as he started moving out of the middle of the road. Right-Eye followed, the two eventually settling at the entrance to an alleyway between Bitterleaf Butchery and Tiger’s Eye Clinic.

“Fuck, who was it?” The paladin said.

“My brother. Thanks for burning my fucking village down, but at least you let us kids escape and you’ve got  _ some _ thrice damned semblance of honor.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Redcloak burned my city down in retribution,” Soon said wryly.

Right-Eye’s expression got even more suspicious and guarded, if that was possible, as he regarded Soon.

“Why are you being nice?”

“Well, after the whole change of heart, I literally ran into you three days after I got here. I figure this might as well happen, the gods know adult life is already so fucking weird.”

Right-Eye blinked, blinked again, and then burst out laughing. The goblin doubled over, clutching his stomach, and Soon grinned, counting it a win.

“Okay- okay. You’re gonna have to catch me up on everything- and before you ask, I trust you because if you haven’t tried to smite me yet then you’re not going to.”

“Fair enough. C’mon, I’ll take you to Serini’s. I think you’ll like her- she’s sneaky too.”

“Isn’t Serini the halfling who almost burned Cliffport to the ground?”

“Yeah, it was a bitch paying Girard’s bail before she did.”


	12. End of the Line

Belkar watched with beady eyes as Soon and a goblin who he presumed was Redcloak’s brother, based on the description the goblin priest had given the Order, walked off towards Serini’s. Well. That would be as interesting as Vaarsuvius and their ex.

Speaking of which, Inkyrius had just walked in the door.

“Customary bribery, please,” the elf said. Belkar grabbed their two pounds of pork and the case of tasty but not pretty enough to sell pastries that Inkyrius traded him for the ingredients of their meat pies and crepes. He handed them the meat, and titled his head.

“...so how’re things going?”

“The kids wanted to sprint to the library the second they woke up and I’m holding them back by a thread.”

“Yeah, you might want to stop doing that. If it’s V giving them those six Bags of Holding that you’re worried about, then let the kids go now or you’ll wind up with sixteen.”

Inkyrius paused, and Belkar got the sense that there was an invisible loading screen in their brain.

“...six  _ what _ ?”

So Belkar explained to Inkyrius that Vaarsuvius was a sap with money, magic, and magical items, who had a best friend who’d haggle prices down for them and another best friend who would help them enchant things. The elf’s face when Belkar informed them that yes, there were three Bags of Holding completely filled with things for Elari and three completely filled with tings for Nethel was as priceless as he could have imagined. 

But there was something he needed to know before he told Inkyrius to go for it.

“Do you actually want them back?” Belkar asked. He was a much better actor than the Order ever gave him credit for- not that he wanted them to, because then they’d know it when he lied to their faces- because Inkyrius didn’t pick up the fact that this question was anything more than idle.

Belkar didn’t quite expect the sheer amount of  _ longing _ in their expression when they answered, though. 

“...I… I do. I know I do. I remember living with them, I remember being married to them, and I- I  _ miss _ it. Not just on the children’s behalf. I miss knowing where the spot they kissed me goodnight was. I miss ink stains on the dining room table, and it drove me  _ insane _ back then but now-”

“You’d do anything to have it back,” Belkar murmured. Inkyrius looked up a little sharply.

“How can you tell?”

He wasn’t cut out for this. He was the last person in Highgate you’d ask to play therapist, and honestly, Belkar knew that was a fact for a reason. But he remembered too. He remembered musty air, he remembered simpler times and days when he saw more of his friends. 

Vaarsuvius smelled like books and ink, not smoke and spell components, and Durkon smelled like metal and booze but the usual scent of ozone that had clung to the dwarf was gone. The acrid stench of magnesium fire had long since left Roy’s clothes, replaced with cologne and the wood of his office. Haley used to reek of leather and stolen gold, and Elan had once smelled like the dusty wood and metal strings of his lute, and now both of them smelled like the flowers in their front yard.

Of course, there were things you could always rely on- the faint tang of magic followed Vaarsuvius wherever they went, and Durkon smelled of caverns found deep, deep beneath the ground. Haley still smelled like gold, and Elan still smelled like musical instruments, and Roy still smelled like plate mail and killjoy. 

But the tang of sweat and blood, of their latest encounter mixed with their current environment, was gone. They weren’t adventurers, anymore, and Belkar missed it.

He missed them. Not that he’d ever say it out loud, but it had been a long time since he’d woken up to the sound of Vaarsuvius flipping through the pages of their spellbook, or Haley quietly counting her gold, or Durkon murmuring his morning prayers to Thor. The sound of Roy sharpening his sword and Elan workshopping puns was, against all odds, missed.

“...dunno,” Belkar settled on, for a response. “But you miss them, even though they drove you batshit crazy and halfway up the walls of your house. You leave a seat for them at the table and don’t notice until it isn’t filled.”

“When the hell did you start sounding vaguely intelligent?” Inkyrius snorted, leaning on the counter.

“When five dumbasses picked me up and shook me around until my heart rattled back into place. Now shut up and leave before I decide to slit your throat to make sure you don’t tell anyone.”

Inkyrius’ eyes crinkled at the edges. It was an empty threat, and they both knew it, but the elf said something about putting traps in their house anyway as the door swung shut behind them.

Belkar sighed, hopping off the stool. It wasn’t a day for much business- most people had bought their weekly meat from him yesterday. Mr Scruffy wound around Belkar’s feet, purring loudly, and Bloodfeast skittered off his rock next to the till. Belkar idly picked up his cat and his lizard- Bloodfeast happily draped himself around Belkar like a scarf, and Mr Scruffy was very happy with curling up in Belkar’s arms, but the halfling found himself closing up shop and walking out the back door nonetheless.

He walked home early, taking the back roads that lead past the Greenhilt manor (being mayor had it’s perks), past the Starshine estate, past Vaarsuvius’ small house and Redcloak and Durkon’s big one (the dwarf had frequent guests, and the goblin liked to avoid them). It was snowing, but Belkar had long since grown used to the cold, and his bare feet remained unbothered as he reached the front gate of his farm. 

The halfling closed said gate behind him, and walked into the ranch house he’d never once invited people into. It was an elegant affair, two stories, with a wraparound porch and a balcony. Belkar walked through the front door and closed it behind him, hanging his snowy cloak on the rack inside the entrance room. And open archway led from that into a massive dining room/living room, that had big floor-to-ceiling windows and lots and lots of furniture and took up most of the first floor. When Belkar had built the place, he’d honestly planned on inviting the Order over every week at least, but… well.

None of them had ever had the time, or Durkon and Redcloak or Roy or Haley and Elan invited them all first. Belkar brought his perfect cooking to every gathering his old party had, courtesy of the massive kitchen that took up all of the first floor that wasn’t the living room.

The hafling surveyed the massive room. One part had bookshelves lining the walls, and one part had a piano and a rack full of instruments, and one part had a shelf filled to bursting with playing cards and board games. There was a big open floor space in front of the huge fireplace, and the fireplace itself had a hearth that extended far enough into the living room to be an impromptu stage. Belkar had stocked the liquor cabinet with the best booze he could find, and he’d even bought some fancy whetstones he could disguise as paperweights.

“Well. Shit ton of good that did me,” the halfling muttered, petting his cat and heading up the spiral staircase next to the kitchen door. The staircase lead up to a hallway, and at the end of the hall lay the door to the balcony. Five doors lined the walls- one to Belkar’s bedroom, one to his office, and the other three to guest rooms.

Belkar hopped onto his bed, and fell asleep far faster than he’d intended. The afternoon sun had shone through windows onto Soon befriending Right-Eye, Girard and Vaarsuvius petting each other’s familiars and chattering in Draconic, Inkyrius and Serini bringing Haley food, and Redcloak, Lien, and O-Chul figuring out just what the hell to do about Soon’s return before Mr Scruffy prodded Belkar awake with a paw.

The halfling groaned, immediately doubling over into a coughing fit. 

When Belkar fell back onto the pillows, he didn’t have the energy to get up. The halfling fell back asleep, and didn’t wake up until the next morning.

Despite the fact that he hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, Belkar couldn’t find it in himself to get up to eat something.

The ranger closed his eyes, listened to his body like he had so many times before- because no matter his Wisdom score, he  _ was _ a ranger- and found something… final. It was like a cross between sickness and poison, slowly forcing his body to give up on him.

Belkar’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at Mr Scruffy and Bloodfeast on the pillow next to him.

He had a feeling that this wasn’t something Durkon could cure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy FUCK I finally managed to get back into the writing swing gods productivity is refreshing.


	13. All the Right Reasons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact I have never read any of the non-webcomic books so I am 100% winging everything. Big thanks, as always, to ReconstructWriter and UndervaluedAgent- the comments make my life.

For the next three days, not much happened. Vaarsuvius gave Elari and Nethel their gifts. Serini agreed to hide Right-Eye from his brother for as long as it took the goblin to figure out what he’d do when he saw Redcloak. Girard further befriended Vaarsuvius, and Soon further befriended Right-Eye, and Belkar didn’t go to work, which wasn’t unusual for one day, and it wasn’t totally unlikely for two, but by day three, people were worried.

Redcloak, Lien, and O-Chul, however, were more worried about other things.

“Okay, he’s been here for almost a week and Serini says he doesn’t plan on leaving, so we’re going to have to get our shit together at some point and talk to Soon, so how the fuck will we do that?” Lien said, turning to O-Chul. He was sitting in one of the front row pews, across from Redcloak’s position where he was doing the usual religious cleaning of the altar, because the altar along with pretty much the entire church was a gift from the gods, and you just didn’t disrespect gifts from the gods.

Lien had been pacing the floor space between the raised floor where Redcloak stood and the pew where O-Chul sat for the last five minutes.

“Honesty, I find, is generally the best path one can take. Soon’s cloak remains blue; he is still a paladin, and thus still loyal to the Twelve Gods and to the tenants he documented quite well,” O-Chul replied, and Lien groaned, because she hated it when he was right and ‘all wise and sage-y and cryptic about it, talk like a normal person for once _ please _’.

“Please tell me that ‘kill goblins’ or any variation isn’t one of them,” Redcloak stammered, and both Lien and O-Chul knew that the goblin had already cleaned the chapel top to bottom and inside and out- even the stonework outside and the snow-coated roof, and they also knew that cleaning the altar (again) was probably the only thing that was preventing Redcloak from sinking to the floor in a puddle of hyperventilating hot mess.

“It is not, which is one of the main reasons I still have hope.”

“Okay but we still have to figure out what the fuck to do about him-”

The chapel doors slammed open, and one _ extremely _ frantic figure in red robes sprinted inside.

“REDCLOAK, EVERYTHING HAS GONE TO THE NINE HELLS IN A HANDBASKET!”

The goblin stood up so fast he knocked a candleabra over, and O-Chul stood up and caught Vaarsuvius when they stopped running but didn’t lose momentum.

“Oh _ shit _, what happened now?” Redcloak asked. Vaarsuvius panted, catching their breath as O-Chul basically held them up with an arm across their shoulders and one on the small of their back.

“Inkyrius- asked me out to dinner- just the- two of us- Bitterleaf- hasn’t come to work in three days- and I am- worried- Master Draketooth- seems- determined to- befriend me- and- your brother- is alive- and seems to have befriended Sir Kim.”

Redcloak waited a few minutes to process all that. The Inkyrius thing was complicated, and Belkar’s absence was worrying, but Right-Eye-

His blood ran cold as he processed what Vaarsuvius had said.

“Oh, FUCK.”

Vaarsuvius steadied themself, and O-Chul let them stand on their own as they wrung their hands nervously, ears folded so far down and back that they were flat against their head.

“What- what course of action, do you think, would be most appropriate? I- I do not know if we should flee this one. I do not know if we _ can _.”

Redcloak stood up, and lurched forward, and Lien caught him when he collapsed. The combination of Soon and Girard and Inkyrius and _ Right-Eye _ was… it was too much.

“I- We can’t deal with all of them. With all of this. Not- not all at once, not now, not- we _ can’t _,” Redcloak mumbled.

O-Chul held up a hand.

“If I may. While you two are incredibly strong individuals, of both great power and great renown, I agree that this is… too much pressure. I won’t encourage you to run forever, but I think some time away from all this to sort your own feelings out without being bombarded by everyone else’s would do you both good.”

Vaarsuvius took a breath, and Lien lowered Redcloak to the floor as O-Chul came up to put a grounding hand on his shoulder.

“...Should we try? I have been avoiding Inkyrius and, in all honesty, the past, for quite some time, should we attempt doing so once more, if only until we comprehend our own feelings on the matter?”

“How would we? It’d take years to parse out this mess of emotions, and there’s nowhere in this town that our biggest regrets won’t find us,” Redcloak spat.

Silence reigned in the chapel, ringing off the pantheons and through the clouds of smokeless incense. Lien and O-Chul shared a look, one that spoke of regrets and wishes and ‘you know where they’re going with this too, don’t you?’

The fears of both paladins were confirmed when Vaarsuvius broke the silence with all the finality of the words that sealed their bargain with the IFCC.

“...then perhaps we should leave the town.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *looks at the fic I've posted* Oh geez I really am a sadistic writer.  
Me: *looks at the plans I have for Highgate* Oh geez I really am just straight up Satan.


	14. In Accordance With Helmuth Von Moltke the Elder

Right-Eye had been hiding out at Serini’s place for four days, because his plan had kind of been shot to hell when he learned from Soon that a lot more than he thought had changed. And it had been the better part of four days before he actually had a conversation with someone who wasn’t a member of the Order of the Scribble. Serini had set him up behind the counter, under a hood, but that hardly stopped the green haired elf- Inkyrius, Girard had said- from recognizing him.

“You’re Right-Eye.”

“And you’re Inkyrius.”

“Okay. I’m not actually supposed to know who you are, I just overheard Vaarsuvius and Redcloak talking one night before I chickened out of talking to my ex.”

"Fair. You here to buy something or to talk?"

"...how do you people always  _ know _ ?"

Right-Eye blinked, and shoved another stool over so Inkyrius could come sit in the dusty corner behind the counter that the goblin had been sitting in alone. Serini was out marketing her clearance stock, which meant that nobody was coming into the store, because Serini’s clearance rack was legendary.

The elf took the goblin’s silent offer, and sat.

“It’s just- I thought they’d be  _ glad _ when I finally… got over it all. I thought they’d be glad to have me back- the Order seemed to think so.”

Right-Eye had never been the fast thinker of his family. Redcloak had always been the one who calculated circumstances in seconds. But he thought things  _ through _ \- it wasn’t fast thinking, but it was sound, and when it came to people, he was usually right for that reason.

“...maybe it’s too much pressure.”

Inkyrius gave him a look that said ‘elaborate or else’.

“Think about it. I know that Vaarsuvius- and my brother, for that matter- can put up with a lot all at once, but that ‘a lot’ tends to be things like battle strategies, spies, things that don’t require much  _ emotion _ from them. This- this being Girard, Soon, you, me, and just the general realization that neither of them can outrun their fuck ups- requires a lot of it.”

“Fair enough, but Suive seems to be handling the Draketooth… issues… as well as I’ve ever seen them handle  _ anything _ that reminds them they have feelings.”

Right-Eye rolled his eye, and took a moment to think that his list of friends was now going to have an  _ elf _ on it, of all things. Like the founder of the Sapphire Guard wasn’t bad enough (though Soon had saved his daughter, in the end, even if he’d been an oathspirit at the time).

“I know Girard and Vaarsuvius are doing well, and that Soon is against all fucking odds one of my two best friends- seriously, it’s been four days, and the other one is Serini, but Serini isn’t that much of a stretch- we’re both rogues, we were both the only people in our respective social circles who could feel an emotion without having a mental breakdown, and we were both the only pragmatists for miles around- but let me tell you I did  _ not _ expect to befriend  _ Soon fucking Kim _ ,” Right-Eye said, deciding that it was wintertime and freezing even inside the store, and that Serini would forgive him for raiding her enchanted-to-keep-everything-inside-it-warm pot of apple cider. 

And he thought,  _ what the hell, I didn’t even expect to come back,  _ and poured a mug for Inkyrius, too.

“From what Lirian tells me, nobody does,” the baker muttered, accepting the offered mug of warm liquid and not really caring if it was heated vodka because they’d left their gloves at the bakery.

“You know what? That’s fair. Then again if brother dearest is friends with two members, I suppose it’s not so awful that I’m friends with one founder. And he  _ did _ apologize for burning my village down the same day he did it while he let me run away, so. Eh. Life’s too fucking weird to wonder how your friendships form, you just gotta keep em.”

“Cheers to  _ that _ , I met Suvie when I broke their nose for stealing the bakery’s good salt. Married them sixteen years later. Still not totally sure how the hell I got them to leave their spellbook home for the wedding.”

“I’m pretty sure Soon and Girard feel the same way and that’s the only reason neither of them have killed anybody.”

Mugs clinked, and the door to Serini’s shop burst open, letting some snow and some cold air in and leading to Right-Eye and Inkyrius immediately shouting in several languages at whoever it was that  _ it’s windy out you idiot because Lirian’s decided to be bitchy this week _ .

And then the elf and the goblin behind the counter and the elf and the goblin in front of the door recognized each other, and Right-Eye didn’t  _ have _ to use his steady form of drawing conclusions about people to know that this was going to be wonderful if it ended well and Ragnarok if it didn’t.

Right-Eye offered his brightest, cheeriest, most dead inside customer service smile to Redcloak and Vaarsuvius, raising his still slightly steaming mug.

“Cider?”

“This… this is  _ literally _ the worst case scenario. I thought of the worst case scenario and this is actually,  _ word for word _ , the worst case scenario,” Redcloak said, staring directly at the countertop with the face of someone who is about to die one way or another and willing to poison himself to ensure that.

Vaarsuvius stared vacantly at their ex, ears standing straight up on their head.

“Had I not spoken to her the day after we reversed Familicide, I would think this was Tiamat getting even,” they said, and Blackwing, on their shoulder, cawed in distress, because he could literally feel it as everything inside his master’s head just crashed and burned in great piles of falling apathy.

Redcloak threw his hands up, pacing around the front of the store, reaching one wall and turning sharply and reaching the other and whirling again.

“Fuck my life. Fuck my  _ entire _ life. Everything is bullshit. I hate the planet. I wish I’d gone through with the fucking plan and didn’t have to live with myself anymore. I wish I’d let you get us both killed by Xykon when I had the chance!  _ FUCK _ !”

With that, Redcloak spun on his heel, and was efficiently stopped in his tracks by Right-Eye shoving a mug of cider into his chest. On instinct, Redcloak took it. Inkyrius handed one to Vaarsuvius, giving them a nauseatingly soft, just as nauseatingly warm smile before taking their arm and leading them to one of the stools behind the counter.

Two quiet conversations began in the otherwise empty store.

“I love you,” Inkyrius began, and they held up a hand when Vaarsuvius opened their mouth. “I love you, and I want you to know that that’s not going to change because I’m backing off and letting you sort Girard out first. I’m not fragile, Suvie, and neither are you. We’re getting through this, and as long as we get a reunion on the other side of it, I don’t much care if we get through it together.”

The effect was instant. Vaarsuvius’ shoulders sagged in relief, their ears relaxing from the anxiety induced ‘look for threats’ position, and the wizard gave a sigh and a small, relieved, guilt ridden smile.

“You should not have to-”

“Oh hell no you do  _ not _ get to go on another depression rant. Do I forgive you for committing genocide on my lawn? Honestly, no. Am I willing to move on anyway because you fixed it and are  _ still _ doing your best to atone? Yes. Yes I am. Say I deserve better all you like, Suvie, because it’s not going to change the fact that I  _ want _ you.”

Vaarsuvius took a shuddering breath, downing about half their cider in one go in the hopes of being able to blame the fact that they were about to cry on something else.

Inkyrius scooted closer, because they knew their spouse, and wrapped an arm around the wizard’s waist, pressing a soft kiss to their cheek as they did so.

“Sorry for putting the added pressure on you, though. We can fix our shit later, after you're ready to do so. I’ll be here, always, when it’s for you.”

“You’re quoting my wedding vows,” Vaarsuvius murmured shakily into Inkyrius’ shoulder. 

“Yeah, I couldn’t come up with anything better on the spot,” the baker said, and Vaarsuvius buried their face in Inkyrius’ shoulder and let out a small sob, and Inkyrius leaned their head on Vaarsuvius’ own and rubbed circles into the small of their back and let their wizard cry their eyes out on a much-needed shoulder.

Every so often, Inkyrius pressed a kiss into Vaarsuvius’ hair, and every time, Vaarsuvius leaned into the touch.

Gods above, had they missed this.

Neither pair noticed the other, mainly because both of their emotional revelations took place at the same time, in the quiet emptiness of Serini’s shop.

Right-Eye shoved a mug of cider into his brother’s hands, and Redcloak grabbed it, and Right-Eye pointedly switched his position every time Redcloak tried to walk off, because this conversation needed having.

“No. Nope. You’re not running away from this one. I’m not even here to yell at you anymore, against all odds.”

Redcloak stopped bobbing and weaving and trying to escape, and instead turned to his brother because he wanted some goddamn answers.

“Why didn’t you just come to kill me the minute you found out where I was?”

“I was actually talking to Soon- it’s amazing how much I needed to catch up on. And, of course, knowing that in the end you saved the world and pretty much all of goblinkind by forcibly shoving the realization down people’s throats that yes, we are sentient fucking beings, had some bearing on my choices.”

“That is  _ not _ the only reason and you’re a goddamn rogue so I’d like to know for sure if I’m going to wind up dead if I drink this.”

Right-Eye folded his arms and rolled his eye. Honestly, his brother was such a dumbass.

“Can we not approach this like a battle? For once?”

“I’m kind of at a loss for how else to approach it.”

“Fine. You’re an absolute dick and you killed me for nothing and guess fucking what  _ you aren’t the only person who’s feelings on this get messy _ . Especially when I get to hear from basically your worst living enemy that you’ve become a decent person. It- I was  _ so ready _ to just waltz in here and stab you back except that you aren’t the same person you were! You’re friends with elves and you got me a funeral and a burial and a grave and you killed Xykon and saved the world and I-  _ what the fuck happened _ !? What the fuck happened to the ice hearted bastard I called a brother?”

Redcloak looked like he’d been slapped in the face (honestly, Right-Eye hadn’t ruled it out yet). 

“I- what? You got here ready to tear me a new one and you just avoided me to chat with a paladin?”

Right-Eye took a very deep breath and decided  _ fuck it, maybe it’ll help him sort Soon out too _ .

“Well, I am going to prioritize my daughter over my backstabbing relative.”

Absolute silence reigned between the two.

“ _ What _ .”

“She got smuggled out, remember? Soon found her as an oathspirit,  _ somehow _ got her passage on a ship, and sent her to the Western Continent. According to Girard- who was rather amused- she got found and adopted by the Draketooths. Died of old age around the same time the Order of the Stick got founded.”

“... _ WHAT _ .”

“Yes yes I ditched killing you to talk about my kid deal with it.”

Redcloak was staring at his brother like he was about to have a stroke. Or go into cardiac arrest. Or just generally fall flat on his ass from shock.

“...so, since you still haven’t answered me, what the hell happened? Why the sudden and abrupt change of heart?” Right-Eye asked. 

Redcloak blinked, moving his mouth like he wasn’t sure what words were, and answered him after a solid five minutes.

“You did.”

“...elaborate.”

“...it’s a long story,” Redcloak said.

“I’m listening,” Right-Eye replied.

“It was at Kraagor’s Tomb, and- it had just started snowing…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "No plan survives first contact with the enemy."


	15. Impudent of You to Assume I Will Meet a Mortal End

_ Redcloak was going to find Serini Toormuck and he was going to kill her. Every door. Every single door in Kraagor’s Tomb, and not one of them held a gate. Not a single one. Was this a double bluff? She was a rogue, and he wouldn’t put it past Right-Eye- _

_ -painful twinge at the thought of him, check- _

_ -so he wouldn’t put it past her. _

_ Xykon and Oona had gone off to fuck something or other up for everyone in the immediate vicinity. The Monster- _

_ -painful twinge because it had been his brother’s friend, and by the Dark One why the fuck didn’t I just kill Xykon so we could all live in some fucking semblance of peace- _

_ -was muttering something about a ‘Mr Stiffly’, and Redcloak himself was pacing and trying not to freeze. _

_ This. This was hell. This was knowing it was quite possible he killed his brother for nothing. That everything he’d done was for nothing. _

_ That he’d been wrong, his brother had been right, and Redcloak had killed him for saying it. _

_ Naturally, the sound of clanking plate armor and the general cacophony accompanying an adventuring party not bothering with subtlety met his ears right at that moment. _

_ Redcloak growled, knowing that full plate or not, it was too late for him to hide. Roy Greenhilt, and then Durkon Thundershield, and then Elan and Haley Starshine, and then Belkar Bitterleaf and Vaarsuvius. _

_ Just his fucking luck- _

_ “Ah! Redcloak, thare ye are. We been lookin’ fer ye all over tha thrice damned dungeon!” _

_ “...Xykon is… literally right outside. Why- how dense are you people?” _

_ “We weren’ lookin’ fer Xykon, lad. We were lookin’ fer ye.” _

_ Redcloak got all the information- gods, quiddity, beating the Snarl- because of course he did, he isn’t stupid, and the Order was happy (ish) to explain, but... _

_ Well. _

_ Any good cleric of the Dark One would have consulted their god. Any good goblin would have asked what they got out of this. Any good leader would have found out where the insurance that nothing bad would happen to their people was. _

_ It seemed Redcloak was terrible at all of these things, because he dumped them all in favor of the memory of his brother’s face and the shining certainty that if there was any way to honor Right-Eye, it was finishing what he started. _

_ Kill Xykon. Seal the Snarl so that no other Xykons cropped up. _

_ Retire. Picket fence, 2.5 kids- hells, maybe he’d even find out what happened to his niece. _

_ So Redcloak killed his brother for nothing, disregarded his god, broke all his own rules, made himself a moot point, and saved the world somewhere along the way. _

“...so you were inspired to finish what I started.”

“Essentially, yes.”

“And the Monster got… consumed, when you were all sealing the last rift over.”

“Lirian’s Refuge. Yeah. He was the last casualty of the Snarl, but I- well, I never did manage to figure out what happened to your daughter,” Redcloak said, a bit sheepishly.

Right-Eye sighed.

“Then it’s probably good that I’ve spent the last four days getting Soon and Girard to tell me everything they can. She named herself Theta. Soon was an oathspirit, so he didn’t even need to cast Detect Evil anymore, and when he saw that she was Chaotic Neutral, he figured that anywhere would be better for her than generally Lawful Good Azure City. Somehow got her passage, she somehow survived, and after about a year of fucking up the carefully laid plans of dictators the Draketooths adopted her. She never had any kids, but she lived a damn long life that, according to Girard, she was pretty happy with.”

“...good,” Redcloak said softly.

And Right-Eye sighed, looked at his brother, and made an executive decision.

“Fuck revenge. You’re still a dick, but you’re less of a dick now than you used to be, and you actually went through the entirety of Xykon’s zombie army to find my body and give me a proper burial. Highgate was literally build on the mutual consensus of ‘the past never happened and we’re just sticking to that’. I’ll blame it on the atmosphere of the town.”

Redcloak narrowed his eyes. There was no way it was that simple.

Right-Eye grinned.

“Also because Serini bet me ten thousand gold I wouldn’t forgive you.”

“ _ There’s _ the entrepreneur I know and love,” Redcloak said, downing his mug of cider and promptly stealing his brother’s, because it was good cider and the pot was infinite anyway.

“Hey!”

“Well if you won’t draw the line at sociopathy I don’t think you’ll draw it at theft.”

“Oh, I dunno, that’s good cider…”

“You’re a  _ rogue _ -”

Hinjo was wandering the streets of his city, mingling with his people and making sure things were going smoothly, when he saw it.

A shrine. A massive one, by comparison to the other types.

Azure City was open to all faiths, now that half of it’s people were goblins, but this was a shrine to no pantheon he recognized, or at least- not as gods.

The Lord of Azure City and the Paladin of the Twelve Gods meandered up to the shrine- which, he could now see, was placed in front of a temple- and the crowd of goblins, humans, a few drow, a few elves- a little bit of every race, really- in front of it.

They were all kneeling, chanting quiet prayers under their breaths, and he caught snatches here and there, whispers of ‘god of changed hearts’ ‘deity of magic’ ‘god of war’ ‘goddess of wealth’, but for the most part, Hinjo was focused on the mosaics on the wall that made up the images of this massive pantheon.

Everyone’s clothes were much finer that he’d ever seen them wear, and their weapons were a bit on the stylized side, but it was everybody’s floating crowns that he really noticed.

O-Chul’s was simple, a sturdy halo of glowing sapphires linked by twining platinum chains. Lien’s was made of water that eventually became upward pointing icicles. Roy’s crown-halo of green fire matched his flaming sword, and Vaarsuvius’ was their old circlet, but floaty and ‘look this person is divine’ with their magic snapping and crackling around it the same way it did around their fingers (and Hinjo was going to find out who designed this, because their spellbook did levitate, but it was covered in way more runes than that).

Durkon had a crown of lightning, and Belkar a crown of leaves and blood. Haley wore platinum, diamonds, and just generally something expensive as hell. Elan’s was made of music notes and words- it was actually quite well done. Redcloak was wearing a literal crown of shadow, and Minrah had some floating rocks, and  _ Right-Eye _ was on there with a crown of bones (Xykon’s, probably) because Hinjo had left the goblin’s grave standing even after he resurrected the rogue.

The paladin’s eyes carefully took in the entire mosaic, and he recognized every single major heroic figure in Highgate as being on there. Lirian’s flower crown was dope. And Girard’s was made of small, kitten sized black dragons. Soon’s was just a literal glowing blue vaguely runic halo, and Dorukan had his circlet but magic-y like Vaarsuvius’ was. Serini wore a crown of gate-stone- small pieces of a sapphire, big chunks of yellow and white, thinner and finer bits of green and red.

What really got him, though, was Kraagor. Since the heroes of the realm- not the gates, just heroes who had defeated some miscellaneous evil- were common knowledge, he should have expected it, but…

Kraagor stood, axe out, strong and proud in shards of pottery and glass, a crown of fiend’s horns floating above his head.

Hinjo sighed. He  _ told _ the Order this would happen with their ‘deaths’, and for some strange reason, they hadn’t believed him.

Oh well. Guess they’d find out when Haley turned a hundred and fifty, or something. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If only I was the kind of person who made achieving godhood as easy as achieving worship, this fic would be over in three chapters. Alas, I'm not- and who knows if godhood is even how this story ends?
> 
> *evil DM smile*


	16. No Good Deed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT IT'S BEEN SO LONG

When the sun rose the next morning, you could finally fucking see it, because Lirian had stopped holding the whole town hostage over her husband killing the mice in their house. Redcloak finished praying for his spells and rose from his customary kneel, blowing out the black candle and placing it carefully back in the Candle Cabinet. 

“How the fuck did you get the gods to  _ agree _ to share the chapel?” Right-Eye said, breaking the silence with his long-missed constant pestering.

Redcloak gave the wry, indulgent smile he saved exclusively for his little brother, joining him on the pews as they waited for Lien and O-Chul to arrive. He had to thank the paladin for his advice- had O-Chul not suggested Redcloak and Vaarsuvius get some space, he never would have run back into his brother.

“Well-”

Right-Eye held up a hand and gave his brother a  _ look _ .

“ _ The short answer _ , please.”

Redcloak pouted, but explained as concisely as he could while the two waited on the paladins. Vaarsuvius was busy with the library, and they had recruited both Soon and Girard as muscle to help them out (mainly because Serini demanded that  _ somebody _ find a reason to drag them out of the store, because they were starting to drive her insane). Durkon had Kudzu that day and Redcloak had happily let him take a day off to spend time with his ten year old son, Inkyrius had a bakery to run, and while Lien and O-Chul had gone to check on something for Lirian, the paladins had both said they’d be back that morning, and the Sapphire Guard was nothing if not punctual.

_ Point proven _ , Redcloak thought, as the chapel doors swung open for Lien and O-Chul, the latter of whom immediately raised an eyebrow at Redcloak while looking  _ very _ amused.

“I thought you and Vaarsuvius were leaving town in the hopes of finding a place with enough fainting couches to suit your drama?”

Redcloak gave the paladin a deadpan glare, and switched said glare over to his brother when Right-Eye burst out laughing and fell off the pew clutching at his stomach.

“Oh- holy shit- the worst part, brother, is that you can’t even  _ argue _ !”

“...and why can’t I?”

“Because he’s right-” a wheeze, and a giggle “-and you know it.”

“Glad to see  _ someone _ -” O-Chul gave Lien an exaggerated glare, and Lien stuck her tongue out at him “-appreciates my humor.”

“Cryptic asshole, meet my little shit of a brother, little shit of a brother, I hope O-Chul has to arrest you for something one day,” Redcloak said, and Right-Eye finally stopped laughing long enough to stand up and brush himself off amidst snickers and knowing glances at his brother.

“Like I’m  _ ever _ going to get caught,” Right-Eye said slyly.

“Famous last words,” Lien intoned, and the four fell to talking as naturally as though they’d been friends for years.

The sun rose higher, and the four moved to the cushion-and-blanket-and-snack filled back room that was mostly fluffy nest sprawl space with a small kitchenette, and was really only used by Redcloak, Vaarsuvius, Lien, and O-Chul, because not a lot of people knew to look for them here and it was comfy and cozy and a nook for friendships forged in hellfire and quenched in blood.

This was where Vaarsuvius and Redcloak hung out, where Lien and O-Chul hung out, and where all four of them existed without their fucked up baggage or a world of expectations.

“Welcome to the pillow trove!” Lien announced, with a ceremonial flourish as she opened the door. Redcloak’s smile was equal parts proud and knowing- Right-Eye was impressed, obviously, and well he should be.

The pillow trove had an L-shaped walkway forged through the cushions and blankets, that followed one wall and turned there into the space you stood in when you were using the counter space (read: if you were Lien screaming ‘BOIL’ at the water in the tea kettle or Redcloak saying ‘this is the last time I’m making you cocoa’ for the fifty-eighth time as he made you cocoa), small magical stove with ‘NO SCIENCE IN THE STOVE REDCLOAK VAARSUVIUS THAT MEANS YOU’ written on it, or the many cabinets, filled with snacks, tea, coca, and coffee of all varieties. A kettle sat on the counter, and a few serving platters were stacked next to that.

In the two cabinets above those were the three tea sets, many mismatched dishes, and many mismatched mugs that the paladins either got from people outside the town who’s asses they’d saved (a surprising amount of the local tribes were really involved in pottery), Redcloak got as church offerings (read: the Dark One kept getting dishes, for some reason, and about nine months ago he’d appeared in a dream to personally give Redcloak free reign to steal them for the pillow trove), or Vaarsuvius found in their many dusty Bags of Holding. Another three cabinets on the other side of the stove and the stove’s chimmeney held the metric fuckton of extremely varied teas, coffees, and other beverages, and the five cabinets below the counter were always completely filled with snacks. 

A few lanterns on the walls (magical, like the stove) lit themselves when the human-goblin party of four entered, casting the room in a warm, fuzzy light, and revealing that the blobs of emerald green and soft blue and deep teal on the walls were actually painted to resemble the oceans on the southern coast. 

Right where the kitchenette’s stone flooring ended and the obscenely comfy couches that faced away from the wall marked the boundary between set walkway and fluffy heaven, a massive, thick, plush as fuck rug had been laid over the floor, and absolutely  _ strewn _ across it- so much so that you actually had difficulty telling that the rug was  _ there _ \- were soft furs, blankets with ridiculous thread counts, and so many fucking pillows and cushions that there was a high chance you could give one pillow to everyone in Rhode Island and  _ still _ not be able to see the rug.

This was the pillow trove: safe, soft, fluffy, and extremely dangerous for the sole reason that it made going back to being an adult very, very hard.

“I’m never leaving,” Right-Eye said, throwing himself headlong into the massive nest-like pile of warm coziness. O-Chul gave an amused smile as he put the kettle on (after snatching it out of Lien’s hands) and only got a muffled groan in response to his question about Right-Eye’s preferred drink.

“Give him some of the orange-mint tea, I think he’ll like it,” Redcloak murmured, dumping his coat and shoes in the corner reserved for outerwear and plate mail (which Lien was quickly shedding and carefully placing on top of Redcloak’s neatly folded cloak, because O-Chul was in the room so she didn’t get to just chuck it at the wall and hope for the best).

Both the goblin and the younger paladin wasted no time snuggling into soft fur and satin pillows, as Right-Eye promptly pulled all of the thickest blankets over himself. 

“Fuck Highgate I live here now,” the goblin murmured sleepily. O-Chul smiled, shaking his head at the half-asleep trio as he tapped the serving platter three times to activate the levitation spell on it (thank you, Vaarsuvius, and the three spilled espressos that led to them engraving runes on the trays). 

The paladin guided the tray to hover near the half-out trio, carefully removing the plate mail to which he owed many victories and much of his life. Once O-Chul set it down atop his cloak next to Lien’s, the paladin grinned the rare grin of a Lawful Good badass seeing a chance for mischief.

With that, he cannonballed his way into the cushion pile in the middle of the trio, and very effectively snapped them out of their dazes, happily ignoring the subsequent swear words as Lien punched him in the face and grumbled when it had no effect.

Eventually, though, the four settled down, content to lounge for a time.

It was a while before Right-Eye found the consciousness to ask the million-dollar question and feel he could stay awake for the answer.

“...so… how  _ did _ the three of you become friends?”

Redcloak opened a somewhat bleary eye, and turned to the two awake and nodding paladins.

With that approval, he turned to his brother, sat up, passed everyone their tea as they did the same, and started the story.

_ Explosions rained down around him, stone and splinters and things he prayed hadn’t been people he knew. Of course. Of fucking course the day after he and Vaarsuvius fixed Familicide, a literal army of pissed dragons came to destroy all they knew and loved. _

_ Though it said something about Cliffport’s considerable might and the several epic level adventurers in it that said black dragon army had been reduced to less than five of the winged bastards. _

_ Well, the Gatefolk (as Cliffport’s police had affectionately dubbed them, because if it involved Gatefolk it got to be someone’s problem other than theirs) were definitely finding a new place to live after this. _

_ Redcloak dodged a blast of poison- spell, breath weapon, who cared. It did the same damage and he no longer had immunity to it. _

_ The Crimson Mantle, once one of the most powerful artifacts in the world, hung from his shoulders, looking no different now that it’s power was completely gone. Redcloak hadn’t known what he expected- when he’d discovered that the spell would effectively kill the Mantle, he’d simply decided that it was time he had the chance to die of old age, anyway. _

_ Now, of course, he was regretting that, but fat lot of good it did him when it was a flat miracle he hadn’t been killed on the spot by his god for destroying a goblin artifact fixing an elven fuck up. _

_ Though the Dark One would have to kill him before Lien and O-Chul did, and Redcloak was pretty sure O-Chul’s honor and firm belief in second chances was the only reason they hadn’t. And the fact that now the dragons would do it for them. _

_ He should’ve listened to his brother and taken a few levels in Rogue. _

“Twenty fucking years and you finally take some of my advice,” present-day Right-Eye grumbled, and Redcloak swatted his brother’s bicep to shut him up. 

“Are you telling the story? No. Now hush or I’ll leave you hanging.”

_ When he made it to the open space in the town square, skidded to a stop in front of the Gatefolk Hall- or it’s marble floor, since the rest of it was scattered around him- and saw the three dozen odd people huddled inside, Redcloak made an executive decision that would doubtlessly kill him. With the assistance of Cliffport and the Gatefolk’s own power, there were less than three dragons left, and if someone didn’t distract them, they’d come back with more. _

_ But right now, he had a fuckton of people he needed to get out of Cliffport and out of dragon sight.  _

_ “COME ON! THIS WAY, EVERYBODY RUN!” _

_ They didn’t need to be told twice, elves and goblins and dwarves and just every single race, really, dashing north where the rest of the Order of the Stick and most of the Gatefolk were hiding underneath a massive invisibility shield and the Cloister spell, courtesy of Dorukan. _

_ A roar sounded, and before he could think better of it, Redcloak turned and shot a brilliant ray of light right at the dragon that was diving towards the civilians- and a scanning of the skies revealed it was the last one. _

_ They ray hit dead on, and even if he could only tell the scales were charred because he literally saw them smoking, he could tell nonetheless.  _

_ Take that, you Chaotic Evil bitch. _

_ Of course, the dragon was now solely focused on him, and so Redcloak silently prepared to die as he prayed to the Dark One for a little leniency based on the fact that he killed his brother for the Plan. _

“...seriously.”

“What did I literally just say about leaving you hanging if you interrupted me.”

_ He shot another spell as the dragon swooped closer, and it wasn’t as strong as it should have been, because he’d destroyed the Crimson Mantle  _ yesterday _ , and he was an idiot, and oh fuck that dragon is really close to eating me- _

_ Redcloak exhaled, closed his eyes, and made his choice. The spell he’d cast would kill the dragon in seven minutes, but he had to keep it occupied until then. _

_ “Right-Eye… you’ll get to break my nose soon.” _

_ WHAM- _

_ -a black dragon’s front claw slammed squarely into the goblin, and Redcloak landed, every inch of his body screaming, seventy feet away.  _

_ He was about to stand, to turn and fight, broken bones be damned, when that same claw pinned him neatly to the ground. _

_ Redcloak screamed through clenched teeth as the dragon’s breath weapon hit him, full force, the goblin pinned to the ground. Better him than the civilians. Better him than a child, a mother, a father. Better the worst Bearer, the worst leader, the worst brother, and the worst goblin. _

_ Destroyed his god’s greatest artifact fixing and elf’s mistake. Killed his brother and then made it all for nothing. _

“You know, I’d almost forgotten how much of a self-loathing depressed bastard you were before we became friends,” Lien mused, watching her mug refill itself (Vaarsuvius again, because they were sick of getting up for more coffee). 

“I’m still wondering how, exactly, we managed to coax both him and Vaarsuvius into thinking better of themselves,” O-Chul added.

“I’m guessing it took years, since Big Brother’s stubbornness puts every mule I’ve met, combined, to shame,” Right-Eye said dryly, downing the rest of his tea.

“We’re like ninety nine percent of his self esteem and he’s still pretending he doesn’t have mental health issues,” Lien said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so offended by something I completely agree with,” Redcloak muttered, and before any of the others could add on, he kept telling the story,

_ As if the breath weapon, full force, wasn’t bad enough, the dragon’s claws were closing, and Redcloak’s armor started to strain under the strength of it’s grip. _

_ He was being crushed, in a massive, taloned fist. _

_ Redcloak closed his eyes, praying that the civilians got away, knowing he couldn’t be the only one dying to save another group. _

_ Maybe the Dark One would be kind. Maybe he would understand. _

_ His holy symbol pulsed with warmth, and Redcloak let his head fall back, smiling, crying in relief. The Dark One had not abandoned him, deserved though it may be. _

_ Redcloak’s pauldrons began to buckle, his breastplate crushing his chest, and the goblin gasped wetly as his ribs broke. His heartbeat was thundering in his ears, his lungs were filling with blood, he was going to die in seconds. _

_ A flash of blue caught his eye. _

_ Lien stood, spear poised to sink into the spot just underneath the dragon’s wing, and Redcloak almost made the mistake of asking her why she’d come back for him. _

_ Really, though. It was the last dragon, it was going to die soon, and he was the  _ goblin _ who  _ burned down her city. _ _

_ He opened his mouth to insult the dragon, distract it further from the paladin who didn’t get to die, dammnit, she didn’t deserve to, and all that came out was a mouthful of blood. _

_ Fuck. _

_ Lien’s gaze locked with Redcloak’s, and she plunged the spear into the dragon’s side. _

_ The dragon did not react well to it’s new body piercing. _

_ Lien jumped and rolled, barely ducking out of the way when the dragon’s jaws snapped shut around the air where she’d been. Redcloak tried to breathe as the dragon dropped him, rolling over and wheezing as blood dripped down his chin. _

_ Fuck, he was dead. He couldn’t- he couldn’t breathe, there wasn’t any way- _

_ A pair of hands landed on his half-crushed shoulders, deftly working at the buckles of his armor. Redcloak gasped and coughed and choked as his breastplate hit the ground, and then his pauldrons, and then he was trying to pry himself out of the hands gripping his shoulders because it  _ hurt-

_ “Lay On Hands,” a voice murmured, a low and soothing baritone, one he’d heard before. _

_ O-Chul. _

_ Lien? Okay, Lien was a hotheaded holy fighter bent on being a hero. Lien was understandable if one imagined that Vaarsuvius or Durkon or Jirix (who had an advantage befriending the paladins, given that he’d been the one to ultimately give Azure City back to Hinjo) had sent her after him. _

_ O-Chul stabbed Redcloak’s eye out after being tortured for information for three months straight and basically enduring hell for approximately no reason besides Redcloak’s stubborn paranoia and Xykon’s sociopathy. _

_ Smite Evil seemed more understandable than Lay On Hands. _

_ Redcloak hissed through clenched teeth as his shoulders healed, and then his ribs clicked into place and knitted back together, and then he was coughing to get the last of his own blood out of his lungs. _

_ “Are you in any shape to fight?” O-Chul asked, and Redcloak was halfway to sure he was hallucinating. Where was the malice? Where was the spite, the grudge, the paladin who broke a bar off his cage and used it to nearly kill him? _

_ The dragon roared, and Redcloak whipped around to face the noise. It wasn’t flying- thanks, Lien- but it’s attention was focused on a very, very unarmed, very, very low on spell slots paladin. _

_ “Disintegrate,” Redcloak said, cursing himself for being stupid enough to make people come back for him.  _

_ The dragon shrieked in a mixture of pain and anger, and Redcloak braced himself on a nearby boulder as the force of wingbeats- no flight achieved, but it was a lot of wind regardless- turned on him. _

_ “Disintegrate. Disintegrate. Disintegrate Disintegrate Disintegrate-” _

_ None of the sickly green rays had an effect, and he was fully prepared to shove O-Chul behind him and take every one of the dragon’s hits when the warmth in his holy symbol pulsed. _

_ Redcloak grabbed the medallion, shoving it towards the dragon as he threw an arm over his eyes, and a massive, crackling burst of darkness flew directly into the beast’s chest. _

_ When the goblin opened his eye, it was to ashes falling like rain as Lien caught her spear, newly freed of dragon hide. Redcloak looked down at the medallion, eyes wide as they were when he’d first learned that there was a god watching over him after all, and watched it glitter in the sunlight like his mother’s eyes when she told him a secret. _

_ “The Mantle was an artifact of war,” an ever-present voice whispered in his mind, “let it be destroyed for peace.” _

_ Redcloak smiled, one side of his mouth quirking up a bit more when he realized that saving Lien and O-Chul was likely the Dark One trying to make amends with Rat. _

_ He hoped it worked. _

_ “That was over faster than I thought it would be,” O-Chul said, with all the idle casualness of someone talking about the weather. _

_ Redcloak whirled on the paladin, yellow eye blazing in fury. _

_ “Why the HELL did you two come back for me!? The spell would have killed the dragon in the next five minutes anyway, why did you put yourselves in that kind of danger!?”  _

_ Lien walked over in silence, standing next to O-Chul as Redcloak started pacing. _

_ “The other Gatefolk are counting on you, dammit, Roy can’t defend the town himself and you guys are effectively our only law enforcement and you’re  _ defintetely _ our only paladins. I’ve already murdered the rest of the Sapphire Guard, don’t add your damn names to that list trying to save the goblin who burned down your city and in one case tortured you for three months straight for information you proved time and again you didn’t have!” _

_ O-Chul exchanged an amused glance with Lien, the two continuing to watch the goblin lecture them on coming back to save one person who was your surefire enemy when the rest of the Gatefolk needed you. _

_ “And WHY did you heal me!? You have no idea how many civilians might have been injured, somebody doubtlessly needed that spell more than I did-” _

_“Needed? You were being crushed alive in a dragon’s claw and when Lien freed you you couldn’t stand as you choked on blood. I can’t think of someone who would need healing more than a goblin who was prepared to die in order to save seventy six people, half of whom were Azurites,” O-Chul said calmly, and Redcloak opened his mouth, closed it, and finally settled on asking the question that had been bugging him this whole time.__  
_ _“Why are you two helping me? I burned down your city, I almost killed you both several times, you’re covered in scars and it’s my fucking fault and you were homeless for three months because of me, you took out my eye and rightfully so and you tried to kill me when we met at Kraagor’s Tomb before I apologized and I honestly can’t blame you- _why_ don’t you two hate me? It- I’d be mad that you didn’t, except that I seriously can’t understand why you don’t.”_

_ O-Chul shrugged, walking up to the goblin and pouring another two dozen HP into Redcloak’s beaten to hell and back body. _

_ “The adrenaline will wear off soon. You need to lie down- none of us have healing left and your ribs are still badly bruised, not to mention the blood loss,” the paladin said, frowning with concern at the goblin who was staring at him like he’d grown a second head. _

_ “That explains why breathing isn’t as easy as it should be, but not why you two haven’t killed me yet.” _

_ Redcloak crossed his arms, swaying dangerously on his feet, and O-Chul sighed. Clearly this was going nowhere, and the goblin was about to collapse. _

_ The paladin nodded at Lien, who started walking towards where the other Gatefolk were hiding out, and O-Chul picked Redcloak up bridal style like he weighed little more than a feather (which, considering O-Chul’s strength, wasn’t too far off the mark). Putting pressure on his ribs by throwing him over one shoulder wouldn’t help, and O-Chul doubted the plate armor on his shoulders would be very comfortable. _

_ Redcloak, naturally, squawked at the indignity, once again chewing O-Chul out for saving his life as the paladin ignored him and followed Lien out of the ruins of the city. _

“It is the one complaint I have about your current frame of mind. You yell at me too much for saving your life,” O-Chul murmured, half asleep between Redcloak and Lien.

“...you say that like it’s happened more than once,” Right-Eye said, and Lien gave him a look that said ‘yes, and he hasn’t yelled at us any less since’.

“It was a bad idea! You could have been killed and I knew what I was doing!” Redcloak said, and O-Chul just smiled sleepily.

“Of course it was a bad idea. It’s a bad idea to rescue anyone- the general idea behind a rescue is that there is someone or something preventing an escape.”

Redcloak huffed and crossed his arms the way he did when you were right, he knew it, and he wanted to argue anyway.

“So anyway-” Lien said “-we adopted him, because we were all on the road for a while before Tarquin found us.”

_ The town-sized caravan was trundling along, and Lien was driving as O-Chul bandaged Redcloak’s arm. It had been three days since the attack on Cliffport, and the goblin had refused healing from the two paladins and promptly burned all of his own healing spells helping the rest of the Gatefolk. Vaarsuvius was by no means taking this well, but the Order had closed ranks around their wizard, and Redcloak knew they would be okay with himself, Haley, Elan, Durkon, Minrah, Roy, Blackwing, and even Belkar stubbornly upholding their self esteem. _

_ “I will heal your ribs and your arm tomorrow morning,” O-Chul said, in the tone that meant ‘or else’. _

_ “You won’t be healing shit until you tell me why you’re doing this,” Redcloak shot back, having only reluctantly given in to the paladin’s Strength score and the fact that no, O-Chul was not letting him get out of being patched up. _

_ “I  _ have _ .” _

_ “‘People deserve redemption’ does not tell me why you risked a manticore to save me just now.” _

_ “You’re much less grateful than most of the people I’ve rescued,” O-Chul said, tying off the bandage that he had wrapped around the gash on Redcloak’s arm. _

_ “I imagine you don’t usually rescue goblins,” Redcloak said dryly. _

_ “Oh, there was the village of hobgoblins that I stopped the Sapphire Guard from destroying. They were much nicer about it than you’re being.” _

_ “...there was the  _ what _ .” _

_And so Redcloak spent the next twenty minutes finding out how O-Chul saved a hobgoblin settlement.__  
_ _“...Gin-Jun. Never did learn the name of the guy who tried to kill me after Soon let me and my brother escape. Not the one who took out Little Brother’s eye- he’s dead.”_

_ “Soon… Kim. Who died. Decades ago.” _

_ “Oathspirits can do a lot, it seems. He’s the one who led them to the village, thinking that anyone worth being a paladin would get the Mantle and be done with it. He let me and Right-Eye escape as he stopped the rest of the Guard from going any further. Don’t think he was happy to see me in the throne room during the Battle of Azure City.” _

_ “...I forget, sometimes, how old you are.” _

_ “For the record, Soon’s very celestial and just powerful, but Lirian is much scarier than he is.” _

_ “I imagine that’s why you’ve avoided her this whole time.” _

_ “Oh no, I was grovelling apologies the second she and Dorukan got Resurrected from that gem. Pick literally any of the Guardian Gatefolk to piss off, the entire Draketooth clan and all of Serini’s imported monsters included,  _ except _ Lirian.” _

_ “Speaking of-” O-Chul said, leaning back against the several pillows and blankets that had turned the cart into a giant bed “-how did you get to be as old as you are? And I can’t imagine that ‘Redcloak’ is actually your name, if goblins and hobgoblins are at all similar in that regard.” _

_ “The Mantle used to stop it’s Bearer from aging, enabling a goblin to accomplish a lot over several lifetimes. And no, I guess my name isn’t actually Redcloak.” _

_ The cart jostled on the uneven road through the mountains, said road being wide enough only for the Gatefolk to travel single file. The Order of the Stick and Lirian and Dorukan were scattered across five-odd carts in front of them, and the Katos were just behind them. _

_ O-Chul cocked his head, and Redcloak remembered than he was supposed to be mad at the stupid paladin who wouldn’t stop putting himself in danger to save people. _

_ “And I’ll tell you that when you tell me why you’re so hellbent on saving my ass.” _

_ It became routine. O-Chul would pray in the morning so he could heal Redcloak, while Redcloak found excuses to burn his spell slots on other people (the goblin woke up a lot earlier than the paladin did, and  _ that _ was saying something). Lien would drive and ignore them both, O-Chul and Redcloak would bicker like a married couple because Redcloak was in danger and Lien or O-Chul saved him, rinse, repeat. _

_ By the time O-Chul finally  _ caught _ him, Redcloak had a sprained wrist, a concussion, and a cold, which meant that O-Chul didn’t so much catch him as the paladin woke up to a fever-delusional goblin too sick to stand. _

_ It was two days and a  _ lot _ of swearing later before they reached the point where Redcloak sat propped up on pillows, buried under blankets and monitored by a mildly amused O-Chul. _

_ “You know, it’s rather hypocritical of you-” _

_ “Save it,” Redcloak rasped, glaring halfheartedly at the stupid paladin who was nice to him even though he shouldn’t be. _

_ “As you wish.” _

_ “And stop quoting Princess Bride.” _

_ “If you tell me what your name is I’ll tell you why I helped you,” O-Chul offered, knowing that the cleric was beyond frustrated with his feeble state. _

_ “I’m surprised you’re not asking after the Mantle.” _

_ “The Mantle is personal, not only to you but to the Dark One and to goblins as a whole. That is your secret to tell, not mine to pry into.” _

_ “Honestly, I’d rather talk about the Mantle than the fact that I don’t actually  _ know _ what my name is, but I picked ‘Redcloak’ and it feels like the right one to have.” _

_ O-Chul’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth and closed it again. _

_ Didn’t  _ know _ . _

_ How could you not know your own name? _

_ “...talk about whatever you like. You’re much better company when you’re not under Xykon’s thumb, you know.” _

_ Redcloak tensed, mind flooding with all of the reasons he  _ should not _ be letting O-Chul do this- _

_ “Don’t,” the paladin said. “You’re not the person who kept me prisoner, and even then, it was never about your amusement. You wanted information and after the life you’ve led I’m hardly surprised you didn’t care how you got it. Xykon… did not. Had I known the locations of the Gates, you would have gotten it out of me and been done. He would not have. Call it unhealthy if you must, but after getting to know the lich, I find it quite easy to forgive the lesser of two evils.” _

_ Redcloak gaped at the paladin in front of him. _

_ “...you’ve lost your mind,” the goblin said, and O-Chul blinked. “You’re insane. Why- how- that  _ can’t _ be healthy.” _

_ “Maybe not. I wouldn’t know, and thus I cannot judge. But you tried, and you’re try _ ing _ , and that matters. I imagine you haven’t heard many people tell you you’ve done well, but you can add me to that list.” _

_ “You can just. Forgive me. For all that. How?” _

_ “I’m guessing that if I try to explain the emotional reasons you’re going to combust,” O-Chul said, eyes sparkling in mirth and a highly amused grin on his face. _

_ “Probably.” _

_ “Fair enough. I will explain the logical ones, then. By forgiving you, I’m encouraging your change of heart and ensuring that no others suffer as I did. By keeping you alive, I am keeping an epic-level cleric with the Gatefolk, since epic-level clerics are rare, and very good assets. By befriending you I am gaining the additional protection against any foes of mine, as well as further encouraging you to do good.” _

_Redcloak considered the arguments before giving a conceding nod.__  
_ _“I’ll grant you those.”_

_ “Okay you’re our friend now and there’s no escape!” Lien called, and Redcloak went back through the entire interaction before he started swearing again, because damn sneaky paladins and their damn hearts of gold. _

“I still don’t know why you two decided to like me,” Redcloak muttered, drinking his tea now that he was done talking. O-Chul, who had his eyes closed and looked like he was about to fall asleep, smiled, and Lien, who was only slightly more awake, answered.

“You turned your back on everything. On your god, your cause, the person you were and the life you’d led and everything you’d lost, for a chance to do the right thing. You had no guarantee that you’d get a happy ending out of this, but you left quite literally every piece of the world you knew behind just for a shot in the dark at being someone better. It’s easy to be good if you don’t know how to be evil. It’s much more admirable to be someone who has to choose, time and again, not to give in to yourself.”

Right-Eye clinked his mug with Lien’s, and promptly knocked back the entire cup of boiling hot tea.

Redcloak sighed, silently accepting that this was his life now as he cast Cure Light Wounds on his brother and O-Chul chuckled, while Lien promptly did the same thing as Right-Eye just to prove that she could.

O-Chul poked her ankle, mumbling ‘Lay On Hands’ and going back to his light doze as Redcloak cursed his brother out in Goblin for trying to dump the entire kettle’s worth of boiling hot tea into his mouth just to one-up the paladin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn it's been. Like a month. Holy shit. WHOOP I just got out of the worst writer's block of my life so that's why, thank you for your patience, hopefully Chapter 17 won't be so late.


	17. Rest for the Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oof.

The primary dome of the library was clean, grand, and largely regarded as one of the prettiest places in town. It was also part of a meticulous system Vaarsuvius had- first dome for books, second for maps, scrolls, and other loose parchment items, and the third for stone tablets and other such archaic things. Likewise, the first dome was an art gallery, the second was a map emporium, and the third was a museum.

Soon, Girard, Vaarsuvius, and Dorukan were gathered inside the third dome, Dorukan only there because his wife had kicked him out of the house following his resetting the mousetraps.

Girard was eyeing Tarquin’s axe- mounted on the wall, with a little plaque underneath it that told it’s… interesting story. Soon was staring with a raised eyebrow at Serini’s original journal (several copies, made by Vaarsuvius, Aarindarius, and Serini herself, were sitting in the main library), reading the plaque detailing it’s importance to the Order’s fight against the Snarl, and Vaarsuvius knew exactly when he got to the part where it said the journal held the actual coordinates to Girard’s gate and that Girard had in fact left him a prerecorded message and a bomb.

“YOU DID  _ WHAT _ !?” Soon shouted, whirling on the illusionist who was watching his life flash before his eyes as he remembered that he had, in fact, left that trap for Soon (at Kanta’s suggestion). 

“Uhhhhhhhh. Fuck.”

“I can’t believe you  _ lied to me _ about where the  _ god killing abomination _ that I  _ helped you find _ was! And that you were perfectly fine with blowing me up if I came to oh, apologize and tell you you were  _ right _ !?”

Dorukan, who had been avidly reading the plaque below the perfectly made (thanks, Minrah) replica of the Greenhilt sword, was now watching this like it was a tennis match while also bearing an expression of the awkward discomfort you felt when a couple you knew well but didn’t know  _ well _ (considering that their arrival was the first time he’d seen them in about seventy years) got into an argument in front of you.

Vaarsuvius, who had been dusting off the glass case over Xykon’s shattered phylactery (and also making sure none of the rest of the Order had vandalized it again- Sir Greenhilt, Master Thundershield, and Redcloak never had and likely never would, out of an already gained sense of closure, a complete indifference to the lich gained through ten years of not dealing with him, and a deep and abiding desire to never, ever, ever deal with anything of Xykon’s again, respectively), turned around and shared a glance with Dorukan.

“Okay we both hated each other at the time-”

“I didn’t!”

“...you tried to  _ stab me _ before Serini came up with the compromise-”

“What if something had gone wrong and I’d needed to find you?” Soon said, folding his arms.

“You had enough hit points to survive that  _ don’t even try to tell me otherwise _ that explosion would have put you at half if it did maximum damage-”

“So I was just supposed to scour the desert afterwards, hoping I walked through an Invisibility spell?”

“I’m assuming you could have gotten someone to get a Sending to Serini!” Girard said, throwing his hands up.

“Gods only knew where she might have  _ been _ \- what if she’d contacted you to find out whether you should let us find you?”

“Okay? Yes, she probably would have called me after you called her?”

“You would’ve tracked us down and killed us all!”

“I would not have!”

Vaarsuvius leaned over to whisper in Dorukan’s ear.

“Do you think it would aid matters if I were to cast Silence on them?”

All of the blood drained from Dorukan’s face.

“Gods above,  _ no _ . Also, when has that ever actually worked?”

“It is my chosen course of action whenever Miss Starshine and Elan get into an argument, as well as when Master Thundershield and Mistress Firehelm have one of their rare fights. It has worked on every occasion.”

“...it will not work on this one,” Dorukan murmured, a little unnerved.

“Very well,” Vaarsuvius replied.

“You’ve always hated paladins, it’s not such a stretch- just look at how you acted with Hinjo!”

“Hinjo managed to be a paladin and a politician at the same time and anyone who isn’t terrified on a primal level by people who can do that can’t feel fear.”

“Oh for the love of- the Aura of Courage doesn’t WORK like that!”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that!?”

“YOU’RE DATING A PALADIN.”

“WELL IT’S NOT LIKE WE TALK ABOUT CLASS FEATURES THAT OFTEN!”

“OH, LIKE THE ONE THAT ENABLED YOU TO SET A  _ DEATH TRAP _ FOR ME JUST IN CASE I HAD TO DO THE RIGHT THING!?”

“WILL you just- I did that fifty fucking years ago!”

“And I’ve been in love with you for seventy, make your point! This party literally  _ specializes _ in getting into fights over things that happened way too long ago to matter to anybody else!”

“IT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP CONVINCING MYSELF I HATED YOU ALL AND THAT I HADN’T FALLEN IN LOVE WITH YOU THE SECOND I SAW YOU AFTER YOU BAILED ME OUT OF JAIL!”

Soon stopped short, and Girard frowned before his eyes widened as he realized exactly what he’d just said.

“I- I’m stubborn, and I kept refusing to admit I’d fallen head over heels for the three things I hated most, those being authority, law, and paladins, except it kept getting harder to convince myself and Kanta- Kanta thought it might help-”

Vaarsuvius and Dorukan closed their eyes and covered their ears as Soon yanked Girard into a searing kiss, opening one eye each after five minutes and promptly screwing them shut again.

“We’re still HERE!” Dorukan shouted, after eight minutes and no sign of the two making out even slightly less passionately.

The two broke apart, Girard grinning saucily and Soon looking sheepish.

“Can’t blame you because that’s exactly how Lirian and I wind up resolving all of  _ our _ arguments-”

Vaarsuvius stared at the ground like they were trying to do taxes and algebra at the same time.

“That sounds…  _ supremely _ unhealthy,” the elf said. Dorukan shrugged.

“Eh, it works for us. Anyway. I’m not going to call you out for ending an argument with a makeout session but I will call you out for doing it when we are  _ right here _ .”

“You have no fucking legs to stand on with the number of times you and Lirian have scarred me for life just because I walked into the hallway at the wrong time,” Girard said, glaring at the wizard.

“Fair.”

“I regret giving in to Serini,” Vaarsuvius muttered, going back to dusting the glass cases of the town museum.

After about three hours, the four of them were done, and had curled up in one of the main library’s sitting areas. Vaarsuvius was sitting on a plush armchair, Soon and Girard sharing the loveseat next to them, and the couch across from the odd couple was currently harboring one yellow-robed wizard pining after his wife.

“I wish-”

“If you say ‘I wish Lirian didn’t hate me’ one more time I’m slitting your throat,” Girard said, not bothering to glance at the wizard in favor of staring at Soon, who was curled up on the couch, leaning into Girard’s side, and half asleep.

Dorukan gave the illusionist a halfhearted glare, but it didn’t stick. Soon and Girard had walked through too many hells to find each other for him to stay mad at them for long.

The wizard sighed, and reached through his bond to his familiar. Blackwing was in Serini’s lap, but Crag- who was absolutely  _ not _ named to resemble Kraagor- was flying around the garden outside.

The one-ounce owl dove down and flew through one of the slightly opened windows to land in Dorukan’s hand. Crag gave an affectionate hoot, hopping up to the wizards shoulder and fluffing up his feathers.

“Is that-”

“My familiar, yes Girard, I picked a one-ounce owl and I named him Crag.”

Griard smiled, and lazily snapped his fingers.

Soon jumped as his lap was suddenly filled with and unbelievably soft red Somali cat, and Orina immediately starting walking in circles before settling down on the paladin, purring and kneading at his pants.

“Her name’s Orina and she only speaks Draconic.”

“Crag only speaks Elvish, so. You’re valid.”

Vaarsuvius blinked, reaching a hand over to pet the cat on Soon’s lap before the paladin swatted said hand away and started petting the cat himself.

“Do you have a celestial mount, Sir Kim?”  
“Yes, but I figured Miki could use a break, and I don’t think you’d appreciate me summoning a pegasus into your library.”

Girard blinked, slinging an arm over Soon’s shoulder.

“You have a pegasus? I thought you guys could only have like… wolves, or horses.”

“I’m special.”

“That you are.”

Dorukan rolled his eyes, stroking Crag’s feathers, and before long Blackwing had flown into the library and landed on Vaarsuvius’ shoulder.

It was then that the door burst open, and a frantic Durkon, trailed by an equally frantic Elan, ran inside. The bard sprinted across the library, grabbing Vaarsuvius’ arm and yanking them out of the chair, and he was crying too hard to speak.

“Elan- what’s wrong, what happened? Master Thundershield-”

“Tis Belkar,” Durkon intoned. “E’s sick wit soomthin ah cannae cure, an’ ah tried ev’ry damn spell o’ healin’ n’ removin’ disease, an’ na one o’ them did a thing.”

Vaarsuvius’ ears began to tilt backwards.

“What- I don’t understand. Bitterleaf- is that where he’s been for the last week?”

Elan, amidst his sobbing, managed to get the words out.

“He- he’s so sick, V, he can’t even get out of bed! And-” the bard broke off, words becoming sobs he muffled in his sleeve.

Vaarsuvius knew their friends. They knew  _ Elan _ , and his childishness normally annoyed them to no end.

They wished they could see some of it in his eyes now, but all they found was wisdom that came at too high a price and a man desperately wishing not to lose one of his oldest friends.

“I- how long has Bitterleaf been concealing this?”

Elan sniffed, inhaling shakily, and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

“About a week. He- gods,  _ gods _ , we never even knew something was wrong until I heard scratching at our front door this morning, and Haley asked me to check on it, and it was Mr Scruffy and Bloodfeast. We- we grabbed Roy, we followed them back to the house, and- and he was just lying on his bed, but when we came in he smiled and he was- he was so happy to see us...”

Vaarsuvius’ ears were tilted as far down as their muscles would allow, and the elf’s golden eyes filled with tears they had never believed they would shed.

Bitterleaf.  _ Belkar _ . Belkar who was crass, and rude, Belkar who had started a prank war with them, Belkar who had- despite himself- defended first Azure City, and then Haley, as best he could. The halfling was untouchable. He was invincible, if he was going to die then he would die taking armies worth of enemies with him. 

Belkar who had  _ tried _ . Belkar who had been the last person in the Order to warm up to Redcloak, but when they were all battling the armies at Lirian’s Rift, the halfling had taken a hit that would have killed the goblin where he stood, and  _ had _ knocked Belkar out cold.

The halfling who had never tracked blood on the carpet of Vaarsuvius’ library, or any of their houses. Who remembered all of the Order’s favorites and made sure to make them for the party’s little gatherings, who had shown up at Vaarsuvius’ house three days after Highgate’s founding when they’d tried to set foot in Kyrie’s Confections and had wound up crying in their living room instead, and had brought a box full of the wizard’s favorite comfort foods.

The two of them had spent the night eating chocolate and talking shit about Tarquin.

Belkar was a fighter. Belkar…

Belkar didn’t deserve this.

Vaarsuvius started shaking, and the elf’s golden eyes filled with tears.

Elan pulled them into a hug, and Vaarsuvius clung to the bard as their shoulders shook, quiet sobs filling the library, full of books Belkar had helped them haul in there, statues he had carried, the things he’d helped them build because he wanted to make up for all the things he’d torn down-

Soon and Girard exchanged alarmed glances on the couch, standing up in time with Dorukan. The wizard nodded at the two, swallowing around the lump in his throat, and Soon and Girard slipped out of the library, giving concerned glances over their shoulders all the while.

Vaarsuvius and Elan were both clinging to each other and crying in the quiet of the library, and when Durkon raised his head to speak, his eyes were full of tears.

“Lirian- she be wit’ Belkar already, an’ tha rest o’ tha Order, too. Lien an’ O-Chul, an’ Redcloak’s brother be wit’ ‘em, an’ Celia an’ Hilgya an’ Kudzu an’ Minrah an’ Ma. Aarindarius an’ Serini be on tha way, but ah diannae wanna call Inkyrius wi’out yer approvin’ it.”

“Please- please call Inkyrius. And- I will inform the crew of the Mechanae. Andi and Bandana, at the very least, will want to see him,” Vaarsuvius said shakily. Dorukan turned a questioning glance on Durkon, and the dwarf nodded.

“Ahm thinkin’ Lirian’ll be glad fer yer company right aboot now, lad. Come wit’ us.”

Dorukan nodded, and Elan squeezed Vaarsuvius a little tighter before pulling away.

“Okay,” the bard whispered. There was a wisdom in his eyes that hadn’t been there that morning, a willingness to do what had to be done that Vaarsuvius had wished they’d never seen on his face.

“I’ll take V and we’ll go tell the Mechanae, and you can take Dorukan to the ranch house. We- we shouldn’t be long.”

“Aye,” Durkon said quietly.

The four of them split when they left the library, and Vaarsuvius held their head high, tears dripping freely down their cheeks as they were cruelly reminded, yet again, that the world wasn’t even as fair as they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta love being heartless. Just. Got something in my eyes. Totally not crying about what the next few chapters will bring.


	18. Of All the Ways to Lose Someone-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -death is the kindest.

The bell above the door to the Mechanae Cafe rang when Elan pushed it open, and even though it was rush hour, Kwesi set her tray down and wove her way between the tables to where they stood.

“Good to see you- wait, what’s wrong?”

“Could- could you perhaps summon the others? I- I don’t want to repeat this more than I have to.”

Vaarsuvius’ voice was little more than a shaky whisper, and that combined with the tears on both their cheeks and Elan’s had Kwesi’s eyes widening in fear.

Something had to be wrong, something with the Order, or it wouldn’t be both of them there.

Kwesi threw the door to the kitchen open, startling Felix and Mateo half out of their skins.

“Something’s wrong, V and Elan are both here and crying and they asked me to grab the rest of you!”

Felix darted off, presumably to grab Andi and Carol, and Mateo ran the other way towards Bandanna and Ozzie. Kwesi darted back behind the counter.

“Okay, folks, shops closing! Family emergency!”

Everyone there knew that ‘family emergency’ actually meant ‘it could be anything from the Order to the entire town but get out’.

The cafe emptied in minutes, and by the time Bandanna arrived, Vaarsuvius and Elan were seated at a table, leaning on each other as the crew of the Mechane gathered around them. 

“Alright, ya’ll, I know those faces. Give it to me straight.”

Elan lifted his head, and it hit Bandanna just how much had changed in the last few years. 

“It’s- it’s Belkar.”

When Vaarsuvius and Elan arrived, it was to a somber house. They walked up the dirt path to Belkar’s wraparound porch, the Mechanae’s crew trailing after them.

It looked like a funeral procession. It  _ was _ a funeral procession, even if it didn’t wait till Belkar died to walk.

Redcloak stood up from one of Belkar’s porch chairs, and Vaarsuvius climbed the steps to hug him. They buried their faces in each other’s shoulders, tears shed in silence.

“He’s asleep. We’re letting him rest,” Redcloak said shakily, lifting his head to address all of them.

Elan walked forward, and pushed the door open, leading them into the living room. Roy’s slumped form sat next to Durkon’s on the couch, Haley a couple seats away from them.

Redcloak took the empty spot on Durkon’s other side, and Vaarsuvius sat between him and Haley. Elan collapsed onto the couch next to his wife, Minrah leaning on the bard’s shoulder from her position on the armrest.

Everyone in the living room periodically glanced at the Order, and whether they knew it or not, the others had clustered around that couch.

Celia was hovering anxiously over her husband, and Sigdi stood across from her son, Kudzu sandwiched between her and Hilgya. Right-Eye was seated in front of the fireplace, worried eyes trained on his brother, framed by Lien and O-Chul. Lirian was curled into one of the armchairs, and Dorukan stood by her, rubbing gentle circles into her back. 

Bandanna and the crew silently filed in, standing like a backdrop behind Hilgya, Sigdi, and Kudzu. Serini and Aarindarius had arrived moments before Vaarsuvius and Elan had, and the two now stood side by side across from Right-Eye and the paladins, likewise casting nervous looks at the Order.

Nobody said a word, not even when the door creaked open again and Inkyrius, Elari, and Nethel walked into the living room. The twins were as somber as the mood, and Inkyrius stepped towards Vaarsuvius before Aarindarius put a hand on their shoulder with a gentle shake of his head.

The Order needed silence. The Order needed each other, right now, more than anyone else.

“I can’t believe he’s dying,” Haley whispered, and Vaarsuvius turned to pull her into something between a hug and a desperate clinging to whoever wouldn’t let them drown. The rogue responded in kind, and Redcloak put a hand on Vaarsuvius’ shoulder and Durkon put a hand on his arm.

Roy sniffed, a quiet sob slipping past his lips as Durkon pulled him into the hug with his other arm. Elan wound an arm around Haley’s pregnant belly, and he and Minrah clung to each other as best they could.

The Order of the Stick, after surviving the lich, the Snarl, the gods, and the armies who’d come after them, had finally started to die. No glorious battle marked the making of that first grave, no noble sacrifice or courageous acts. There would be no grateful kingdom, no monument, no apology. Not for this- the quiet suffering that overtook a house unable to fix what they couldn’t fathom being broken.

And just as they had when they all first came together, the Order clung with all their might to the only people who would help them- who  _ could _ .

Nobody was coming to save them. There was no epic-level cleric to find, no magic wand to fix this, no curse to break or dragon to slay.

For the first time in their lives, there was nothing they could do.

It was an hour, the silence unbroken, before the Order stood as one and walked up the stairs. Nobody followed them. Nobody felt they had a right to.

When the seven of them walked into Belkar’s room, Mr Scruffy and Bloodfeast were curled up on either side of him, and though he was obviously weak beyond measure, he was still slowly running a hand through the cat’s fur.

His party surrounded his bed, and Belkar smiled. Actually, genuinely smiled, soft and real and knowing, but happy.

“Always wanted to have all you dumbasses over one day,” Belkar rasped. His face was sunken, dark circles smudged under his eyes, and he still managed to smile at them.

Durkon was the first, walking forward and giving Belkar a hug. Elan quickly followed, swallowing around the lump in his throat and blinking tears out of his eyes, and despite herself, Haley wasn’t long after, stepping forward and patting his shoulder.

“I’ll name one of the twins after you,” she said, voice hoarse with grief and wrought with memories. Belkar’s smile widened, just a bit, and it only made Haley cry harder.

Minrah stepped up, gently squeezing the halfling’s hand. 

“I wish we’d both gotten over our shit and gotten together before it was too late.”

Belkar huffed, a pale imitation of a laugh, but a sound of amusement nonetheless.

“Me too.”

The dwarf pressed a kiss to his cheek, and stepped back, and Redcloak stepped forward, shoulders shaking with the sobs he wouldn’t let slip past his mouth, and put a hand on the halfling’s forehead.

“Remove Disease.”

Darkness flickered around Redcloak’s hand, but Belkar’s condition did not improve.

“ _ Remove Disease _ \- Heal, Cure Critical Wounds-”

Durkon pulled the goblin away, knowing that Redcloak was down to his last few spell slots already.

“Ye cannae do a thin’, laddie. Nae one o’ us can.”

The goblin shook, and Belkar’s smile didn’t waver, didn’t fade, not as Vaarsuvius stepped up and put a folded piece of paper in his hand.

“Explosive Runes. For- for when you run into Miko’s horse.”

It was an eleven year old joke, that Belkar would ask Vaarsuvius for an Explosive Runes before getting himself into something stupid.

After a decade, he got his wish.

Vaarsuvius stepped back, head bowed, and Roy at last took their place. 

“You are a lot less trouble than you’re worth,” he whispered, and for the first time since he’d found out he was dying, Belkar shed a tear.

“I’d built the house with the idea that I’d have all of you over,” the halfling whispered. “Guess I got my wish.”

The Order crowded closer, closing ranks around their dying friend. Durkon and Redcloak put a hand each on Belkar’s shoulders, and Vaarsuvius and Minrah held his hands. Haley put a hand on his bicep, Elan mirroring her on the halflings other side, and Roy rested a hand on Belkar’s buzzcut.

The murmurs started slowly, goodbyes and regrets and things that had been left unsaid, but eventually they slid into one synchronized statement that rose above them all, the words seeming to hang in the air like a spell that could save him:

“You are loved.”

Belkar’s smile returned, his old one, reckless and giddy with bloodlust.

“I’ll be sure to clear a path through the armies for all you soft squishy types. You seven aren’t getting abandoned.”

The halfling coughed, and when he spoke again, it was in a rasping whisper they could barely hear.

“Not by this… sexy… shoeless… god of… refuge.”

Belkar’s eyes slipped shut.

For one minute.

Two.

Three.

Roy felt for a pulse with a shaking, calloused hand, and couldn’t speak around the choked sob wrenched out of his throat.

Still, there was hope. There was a chance.

Redcloak pulled out a massive diamond, and passed it across the bed to Minrah. They would bring him back. They  _ had _ to.

Minrah said the words.

The diamond floated above Belkar’s body, and shattered.

The halfling had left them with instructions to Resurrect him, and as a result they would only need to do it once, because he planned on coming back.

Ten seconds.

Thirty.

One minute.

Belkar’s eyes were still closed.

Two.

Four.

Belkar’s chest was still motionless.

Seven.

Ten.

Belkar wasn’t coming back.

“Why… why didn’t it work?” Elan whispered, the quiet in the room as thick as wool.

“I don’t know- I cast it perfectly, he said- he said he was coming back to us-”

Minrah broke off, tears coming back full force, and suddenly it hit them, every backup plan used up, that Belkar was dead.

Their friend who’d protected them, who’d helped them, who may not have been tender or soft but he kept them  _ safe _ -

God of Refuge.

God of protecting your friends, your people, your tribe, god of taking your rage and your knives and your destruction and using it to  _ help _ .

Belkar who had decided, all on his own, to be something better, to be someone greater.

All of that effort, all of those days and weeks and years being kinder, everything that had happened and everything he’d done, and Belkar was gone.

“...no,” Haley whispered. “NO!”

Haley didn’t move. None of them did, like maybe if they held him long enough the warmth in their bodies would pool into his.

But gods couldn’t save him, so what made the Order think they could?

“Ah- ah c’n mebbe cast Speak Wit’ Dead, ta ask why ‘e isn’t returnin?”

“Yes. Yes, cast- cast it,” Vaarsuvius rasped. Durkon cast the spell with a shaking hand, and they waited for Belkar’s soul to rise.

And waited.

And waited.

When it clicked, the blood drained from their faces.

“H-  _ how _ ? How could the Snarl have gotten him?” Haley gasped.

“It could not have reached Bitterleaf- it cannot reach anything!”

“Then why isn’t the spell working!?”

“Some other misfortune must have befallen his soul! Perhaps he is imprisoned, or- or-”

“Or we’re about to regret faking our deaths,” Roy intoned, and that had Vaarsuvius and Haley’s gazes snapping from each other to the party leader.

“Explain your statement.” A sharp flick of one ear. “Now.”

“If the world thinks we’re dead, we might have become widespread enough for some grateful Azurites or goblins or some dissident Westerners to start worshiping us.”

“You believe we are becoming gods?” Vaarsuvius breathed.

“I think we should investigate the possibility, and find out just  _ how _ Soon, Girard, and Right-Eye got to the town. I  _ want _ to do that, but- after-”

“None of us have the energy. None of us can take a world shattering revelation, and if indeed you are correct, then… then the right thing to do is set it aside.”

Silence met Vaarsvius’ proclamation, everyone waiting with tear-filled eyes and tense shoulders to hear the rest.

“We have a friend to bury,” the elf whispered. “We have a brother-in-arms to mourn before we ask the world if they’ve put us on a pedestal. There are more important things to us than that. There have to be, or we have not changed at all in the time we have been together.”

None of them could’ve disagreed if they’d wanted to.

Being gods wouldn’t bring Belkar back. It wouldn’t make the wait to see their friend again any shorter. It didn’t save him.

The Order crowded closer, hands in hands, arms around shoulders, heads bowed, eyes closed, tears falling anyway.

The most monumental revelation they could have, and none of it mattered without all of them there to share it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If only godhood was as easy as worship- or death.


	19. A Tender Unity Put to Test, Friends and Family Laid to Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The line is actually from a prophecy, from a campaign I played, and it's actually 'friends and lovers laid to rest'. That particular campaign holds a special place in my heart, and the line seemed fitting as a title.

It was a half an hour before the silence around Belkar’s cold body broke.

“We have to tell everyone,” Elan whispered, squeezing Haley’s hand tighter. “They deserve to know. They deserve to mourn.”

Vaarsuvius’ shoulders had never once stopped shaking, the elf barely hanging onto their silence as tears streamed freely down their cheeks. Redcloak’s eye had never left the body, thoughts chasing each other around, what ifs and whys and hows. Roy’s head was bowed, crying for a friend he wished he’d had more faith in.

Haley’s hand was on her stomach, and she was making good on that promise, even as Minrah leaned into the rogue, going back over every chance she didn’t take. 

Durkon squeezed Redcloak’s arm. Screaming at the gods who couldn’t heal him wouldn’t help. 

Mr Scruffy hadn’t moved since Belkar’s hand went still in his fur, and neither had Bloodfeast, but when Haley offered her arm, the lizard crawled onto it, draping himself around her shoulders like a scarf.

Vaarsuvius stepped forward, and Mr Scruffy leaped into their arms, something telling the elf that Blackwing would forgive the company.

One by one, they left the room, slipping into marching order without even realizing it.

Redcloak felt the empty space at his back like he’d felt Xykon following him around, and the goblin silently added another ghost to his ever-growing train of memories.

When they arrived in the living room, and simply headed back towards the couch they’d been sitting on earlier, it was Celia who realized it first.

She wrapped her arms around her husband, whispering Sylvan in his ear, and Roy numbly hugged her back. When Inkyrius saw the cat in Vaarsuvius’ arms, they walked over, gently pulling the wizard off the couch and over to Aarindarius, the children, and Serini.

Minrah and Durkon stood with Kudzu and Hilgya and Sigdi. Haley and Elan walked up to the staff of the Mechanae Cafe, and Elan traded quiet words with Bandana.

Right-Eye stood up, and he, Lien, and O-Chul met Redcloak halfway, pulling the older goblin into a half-hug, half-huddle.

Serini went and curled up on the arm of Lirian’s chair, and Dorukan wrapped his arms around the both of them.

Vaarsuvius finally caved, sinking to the floor with a quiet sob that sounded loud as a lightning bolt in the heavy quiet of the living room. Elari and Nethel rushed in to hug them, and Inkyrius hugged all three of them, Aarindarius kneeling opposite the baker to turn it into a sandwich.

Blackwing, who had been silently perched on Vaarsuvius’ shoulder, gently tapped Mr Scruffy’s head with his beak.

The cat looked up at the bird, and Blackwing hopped closer to nuzzle Vaarsuvius’ face as Mr Scruffy curled further into their arms.

Redcloak fell into his brother’s hug, and Lien and O-Chul took his weight in stride. Lay On Hands couldn’t fix this, but hugs and a lot of love might.

Bandanna was the first to break the silence.

“I’m goin’ out on a limb and sayin’ ya’ll are havin’ the funeral today.”

Seven nods, from seven people who couldn’t speak around the lumps in their throats. Bandanna tipped her head in acknowledgement, and turned to her crew.

“Alright, ya’ll. These seven ain’t leavin’ this house till they’re ready, and we ain’t letting them starve.”

It took the Order two hours to pick themselves up off their dead friend’s floors. 

“We have a funeral to plan,” Redcloak said bleakly, everyone who had been in the house when Belkar died gathered once more around the eig-

Seven.

Seven members of the Order of the Stick.

“‘E was a Northerner,” Durkon began, and Minrah finished the sentence for him.

“He’ll get a Northerner’s funeral. Full honors.”

And that was it, because they knew each other. They knew Durkon would lead the procession, that Minrah would walk just ahead of the casket, a place usually reserved for spouses and siblings, and one she would not see given to anyone else. Elan would walk on the right, as every musician did. Haley would be on the left with Bloodfeast, along with Vaarsuvius and Mr Scruffy, in the place of the family of the deceased. The crew of the Mechanae would be with them.

Roy and Andi would carry the simple wooden box. Lien, O-Chul, and Redcloak would walk behind them, a place for former enemies to pay respects to noble foes.

Inkyrius, Right-Eye, and Hilgya would begin the train, and mourners would join as they walked the town.

Durkon said the last rites over the body, dressed in the gold-edged ceremonial armor reserved for things like this, and Roy gently lifted Belkar’s body into the casket, shutting the lid so softly it barely made a sound.

His daggers, his enchanted brooch, and the finest set of cooking tools in the town would be placed on his grave.

Lirian came back in with flowers, one white rose for each of the mourners, and Serini brought the fine black clothes they only wore to funerals. Elan composed a ballad, sad and bright and full of wishes, telling of everything Belkar had done, of who he had been, of why they would miss him. Minrah bowed her head, clouds crowding into the sky, hiding the sunset from view as she lit the lanterns they would need.

When they filed down the gravel path from Belkar’s empty house, they were little more than a grim parade of black and the flickering glow of floating candles.

Durkon knew the path to the chapel well, and he walked it now, silver steel and yellow gold glinting dimly in the low light. His cloak was black. He was actually wearing one.

Minrah had left her armor behind, now wearing the same black dress Sigdi had made for her husband’s funeral. The simple black linen swished with ever step she took, the skirt just long enough to hide her worn brown boots, caked in soot from the forge.

Roy bore the casket, face damp with tears, sword strapped to his back and clothes gone from simple and tailored to black as the shadows in his eyes, and Andi held the other end, long black coat fluttering slightly in the breeze.

On the right side of the wooden box, Elan played the song, fingers deftly finding the strings and voice hitting every note right, because he would be damned to the lowest of hells before he gave Belkar any less than the greatest funeral a bard could make.

On the left, Haley and Vaarsuvius were pressed close to each other, black dress and black robes, Haley’s hair in a bun and Vaarsuvius’ loose around their shoulders. Bloodfeast was curled, tired and sad, around Haley’s shoulders. Blackwing was perched on Vaarsuvius’ shoulder, beneath the curtain of violet hair. Mr Scruffy was in the elf’s arms, and they would turn anyone to ash who said that cats would never care because this one looked like he wished he could’ve been a body in the casket with Belkar.

The crew of the  _ Mechanae _ , dressed in black and faces somber, shuffled in a tight cluster behind them.

Lien and O-Chul framed Redcloak, all three dressed for the funerals they had said the rites for many times before. The paladins kept giving the goblin worried looks, and just behind them, Right-Eye didn’t bother glancing away.

Everyone who had been in the house filed on behind the Order, all dressed in a black broken only by the flickering light of Aarindarius’ candles. There was no pause when they reached the town. The Order had a friend to bury.

Durkon took them down the main street, the fastest way to the chapel there was, and Soon and Girard slipped out of Serini’s shop to join their trio of friends.

“I’m sorry,” Soon whispered.

“So are we,” Serini replied.

And the Order walked, every one of them kept upright by nothing more than a stubborn refusal to see this go any way besides perfectly. None of them said a word, not as Roy and Andi set the casket down at the head of the chapel, not as the Order and the  _ Mechanae’s _ crew formed a cluster around it.

Durkon set his rose down first, and Roy pulled his off where Lirian had pinned it to his lapel. Andi drew hers from her coat, Bandanna did the same, and the others had simply held theirs on the way there.

Haley had carried two roses, one for her and one for Elan, and she added them now to the ever-growing pile. Vaarsuvius had tucked theirs behind their ear to hold Mr Scruffy, and Blackwing, easing this as much as he could, grabbed the rose and fluttered over to drop it on the casket.

Redcloak, Lien, and O-Chul placed theirs on the pile, and Minrah was the last of the Order to set her rose down.

From there, the seven members of the Order stood behind Belkar’s casket, letting mourner after mourner place their rose and fill the pews in silence. All of Highgate would know what had happened by now- all of Highgate was  _ there. _

The Order of the Stick had saved the world, saved them all time and again after that, and had kept them safe despite it all, and now the Order of the Stick was dying.

Durkon said the right words, sprinkled the right amount of holy water on the casket, stepped back at the right time. Elan’s playing had gotten quieter, and he was no longer singing, but he had never once stopped in the fifteen minutes it had taken them all to arrive, and he didn’t stop now, even as his wife gave worried glances to his fingers, wondering when the strings would pierce his callouses and start to make him bleed.

It was a Northerner’s funeral, yes, but it was  _ Belkar’s _ funeral, and he had left his seven immediate family members rather specific instructions for how he wanted his body handled.

_ “I want you guys to do the whole honorable funeral shit, and I want everyone to get to cry and put roses on my corpse, and then I want you guys to blow me up to fuck like dwarven tinfoil in a gnomish microwave. That’s the one instruction I’m giving you for my funeral. Blow my corpse the  _ fuck _ up.” _

_ “I’ll happily see to it,” Vaarsuvius said, a faint smile betraying their newfound liking of the halfling. _

_ “Somebody has to cast a containment circle first,” Roy called, and Belkar groaned, muttering ‘goody two shoes’. _

Redcloak drew the circle, careful runes on hallowed ground, and cast the spell. It had seemed only fair at the time that the killjoy goblin cleric follow the rules, and the elf with the prank war on Belkar Fireball his corpse.

It seemed only fair now that they honor their words.

The containment spell glowed purple, strong and unbroken and not a flicker in sight, as Vaarsuvius stepped forward and raised their hands, golden eyes focused squarely on the wooden box like they could see the corpse inside.

Inhale.

“Fireball.”

Exhale.

The elf stepped back, and together, the seven-person Order of the Stick watched their friend’s body burn.

Vaarsuvius held Mr Scruffy, something telling them the cat would try to leap into the flames.

A hand reached over to pet the cat, and Vaarsuvius started, turning to see Inkyrius standing just behind them.

“Will you be alright?” The baker whispered, and Vaarsuvius nodded, and hugged Mr Scruffy tighter as the cat snuggled further into their chest.

Inkyrius stepped forward, putting an arm around the wizard’s waist as Vaarsuvius leaned their head against the baker’s shoulder, closing tired eyes and resting a more exhausted heart.

The two stayed that way, eventually sitting against the wall with the rest of the Order, even as the fire burned to nothing and left ash behind, even as the chapel emptied, even as the rest of the Order fell asleep leaning on each other and propped against the chapel wall.

Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius had intended to keep an eye on the other six, but about an hour after even Redcloak fell asleep, the two slipped into a trance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honey, you've got a big storm comin.


	20. The Way the World Ends

Lien and O-Chul trekked through the heavy snow the next day, Lirian having asked them to investigate an anomaly nearby. The Order and Inkyrius had been moved to the pillow trove last night, when Right-Eye had noticed that all of them had fallen asleep sitting with their backs to a wall. The paladins had helped him and promptly jumped at the first distraction offered to them.

“I’m surprised Belkar didn’t get Rezzed,” Lien said, voice barely loud enough to be heard over the wind. O-Chul’s eyes scanned the white horizon, waiting for something to disturb the soft snowfall.

“Lirian’s anomaly should be just behind the ridge. Ladies first?” O-Chul said, raising a brow with a bemused smile. 

Lien gave him the are-you-fucking-kidding-me look.

“You have the Constitution of a fucking Tarrasque, have fun.”

“Trauma.”

“Teatime with the source of it, I freely acknowledge that I’m a weak bitch in this situation and also Send In the Meat Shield is the only plan I’ve used that’s actually gone according to plan, so… have fun.”

O-Chul rolled his eyes, still smiling, and poked his head over the ridge.

A massive, crackling rift, floating three feet off the ground, edged in purple-blue and an unmistakable hole in the very fabric of reality.

O-Chul hit the ground next to Lien so fast his teeth clacked. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” the paladin hissed, and Lien’s eyes went dinner-plate wide because O-Chul  _ did not curse _ .

She poked her head over the bluff, and started swearing in Goblin to the point that Redcloak would’ve smacked her if he’d been there.

“Lirian needs to hear about this,” O-Chul said, and Lien could hear the blood drain from his face.

“Then why the hell are we still sitting here?”   
  


Redcloak was awoken very abruptly by the sound of the chapel bells ringing, and it took him a minute to place the staccato rhythm of that particular alarm sequence.

Rift.

“ _ Shit _ \- WAKE UP!”

Vaarsuvius jolted upright first, Roy following shortly. The others and Inkyrius weren’t far behind.

“Why is a rift alarm going off!?” Haley asked.

“No idea but I’m not waiting for Lirian to come tell us! Everybody move your asses!”

The Order scrambled to their feet, racing out of the pillow trove and to the town square, where Lirian would doubtlessly be found fortifying the living shit out of Highgate’s defenses. Vaarsuvius spotted the Crimson Mantle, folded in front of Kraagor’s statue, and threw it at Redcloak- the goblin caught it, frowning before he remembered that Vaarsuvius did not, in fact, know that it was useless.

Well, shit. He should have told them back when Soon and Girard got there, but Redcloak desperately wanted something to do, and so for the first time in four years, he put the Crimson Mantle on.

Nothing happened, but it was kind of comforting anyway.

Lirian ran up to them at a full sprint, skidding to a stop and nearly doubling over.

“Okay- Redcloak, Vaarsuvius, check the defenses on the eastern point of the barrier, don’t get stuck outside of it or you will  _ not _ be able to get back in and because of the Cloister spell we won’t know it, you have two minutes to cast any Sendings before the field goes on lockdown- Roy-”

Redcloak and Vaarsuvius had stopped listening, taking off the minute Lirian finished talking. As they ran through the town, they were joined first by Inkyrius, who had their longbow and was following their spouse, and then by Soon and Girard- both were fully outfitted for adventuring.

Right-Eye was already there when the five stopped in front of the Eastern lock, a step away from going through the barrier, and he likewise had all of his gear.

“I got your Sending- I brought all your adventuring gear,” the younger goblin said, plunking Redcloak, Vaarsuivus, and Inkyrius’ backpacks down in the light snow.

“What Se-”

Redcloak was cut off as somebody shoved him forward from behind, and he went through the barrier face-first, landing in the snowdrifts that piled three feet high just outside of Highgate’s protections.

When he’d finished scrambling for solid ground in the deep snow, Redcloak looked around. Vaarsuvius, Soon, Girard, Inkyrius, and Right-Eye were struggling to their feet around him, and when the goblin turned, his eye went wide.

Sometime between them getting pushed and them getting up, the barrier had gone on lockdown.

Nobody was getting anything out of Highgate- be it letters, Sendings, or carrier pigeons- and sure as hell nobody was getting back in.

The six of them were stuck outside the town, and they had no way to contact the people inside.

Girard sighed, tromping up a snowy bluff after his boyfriend. He and Soon still needed to talk about the whole ‘death trap’ thing, but as of right now they were stuck with two other pairs who also had things to talk about and no way back into the town to talk about them.

He and Soon had gotten a Sending from Vaarsuvius, telling them to suit up and meet them at the Eastern Lock. Inkyrius and Right-Eye had gotten similar ones, Right-Eye’s with instructions to grab gear for everyone who didn’t have it along with his own, and so, for the first time in a very very long time, Redcloak and Soon were wearing full plate armor, Right-Eye was in the studded leather he hadn’t worn in years, Girard himself was wearing a breastplate and bracers, and Inkyrius was wearing full leather armor similar to Right-Eye’s.

They looked like a true adventuring party, with Inkyrius having an arrow knocked and Right-Eye holding his axe, and Soon and Girard with their respective swords unsheathed, and Redcloak with a hand on his holy symbol and Vaarsuvius with a hand on their spellbook, and all of them looking around like the poster child height of paranoia.

“We should have a party name,” Inkyrius said out of approximately nowhere. “Since we’re stuck out here for a while and will probably wind up adventuring for food.”

Soon sighed, and Vaarsuvius’ ears twitched.

“They aren’t wrong,” the paladin murmured. 

“Any ideas?” Right-Eye asked.

“I mean… the two most epic world-saving parties were named some variation of ‘The Order of the’ so I feel like we should continue the tradition,” Inkyrius said. Right-Eye tilted his head, biting the inside of his cheek like he always did when he was thinking.

“Stick, Scribble, and… storm? No, none of us are priests of storm gods…”

“The Order of the Story?” Vaarsuvius chimed. 

The other five mulled it over, and eventually decided that it seemed fitting for their current trope-fueled situation (Girard), was a nice play on the previous Orders (Soon, Redcloak), and definitely sounded like the party name of six emotional trainwrecks who happened to be armed vagrants solving a slightly larger number of problems than they cause (Right-Eye, Inkyrius).

“The Order of the Story it is,” Soon declared, as he reached the top of the bluff, shouted an alarm when he saw the rift that none of them had known the location of, and promptly began to fall as the snow beneath his feet crumbled.

Girard lunged forward, grabbing Soon’s hand, and it wasn’t enough.

Soon slipped out of his grip, falling five short feet towards the crackling purple hole in reality, and Girard  _ screams _ when the paladin falls right into it, wide grey eyes locked on Girard’s ice blue ones the entire time.

Without needing to think, the illusionist jumps in after him, and when Vaarsuvius grabs his wrist to try and stop him, the elf gets pulled in too.

Inkyrius and Redcloak lunge for the wizard just as they vanish into the rift’s maw, and like the snow hadn’t supported Soon’s weight, it doesn’t support theirs.

First Redcloak, then Inkyrius, and then Right-Eye when he tries to save his brother, plunge headfirst into the jagged tear in the fabric of the universe.

The last thing Right-Eye sees before his vision is consumed by purple light is the cloudy sky above them, a lone lightning bolt flickering between the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would be much easier to write if that was where the Order of the Story's story ended, but, fortunately for my deep and abiding love of making characters suffer, it is not.


	21. Into the Unknown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's not dead! It's not Belkar.

Redcloak hadn’t been expecting to see anything after he fell into the rift, but today had started at rock fucking bottom and seemed determined to keep digging.

_ O-Chul rammed his elbow into a guard’s nose, breaking it on impact, right as Redcloak’s hand locked around his wrist. Unfortunately, the two went sprawling on the hallway floor as a result, gravity and momentum being decidedly shitty today. _

_ Before Redcloak’s head could hit the castle’s stone floor-  _ hard _ \- he found himself pulled into this almost-hug, and when the two landed, Redcloak had his head on the paladin’s chest, his fall cushioned by O-Chul’s body. _

Fuck _ this man needed to stop making escape attempts. It was getting harder to pretend his Strength wasn’t worth shit. _

_ The cleric pushed himself semi-upright, staring at the idiot who’d just knocked himself unconscious saving Redcloak from a mild concussion. He’d probably done it on instinct, years of heroism and saving fragile noblewomen with one hand while murdering the goblins who helped her escape her shitty parents with the other. _

_ ...but… _

_ “Fuck,” Redcloak muttered. _

_ He stood up as footsteps rounded the corner and another escort of hobgoblins arrived to take the paladin back to his cell. _

_ The wounds Xykon had given him earlier that day were nowhere to be found, because clerical spells healed wounds without leaving so much as a scar. _

_ Over a half decade later, after Cliffport and Tarquin and when the Gatefolk were fleeing to the Pole, Redcloak was thrown into the wall of a cave, cursing under his breath as the giant spider person drider  _ thing _ scuttled towards him. _

_ His vision swam, paid radiating from the back of his head- _

_ -where was he? What- where was Xykon? No, that wasn’t- wasn’t right- where, where was Right-Eye? Where was his broth- _

_ -no. No, Right-Eye, Redcloak, he’d- what time was it? Was-  _

_ Shit. Right-Eye was dead. Xykon was dead. Order of the Stick. Vaarsuvius. Cliffport. Dragons. Paladins. Road trip. Tarquin. Road trip 2.0. _

_ He was about to die. _

_ The thing was rearing up in front of him and seven rows of teeth were going to eat him alive but honestly it was better than dying while still in Xykon’s service- _

_ “SMITE EVIL-” _

_ Perhaps it was the absolutely fucked mental state, but Redcloak flinched, because any minute now someone was going to shove a sword through his chest and pain radiated out from where his eye had been but wasn’t- _

_ “Redcloak? REDCLOAK! O-Chul! I found him, he’s alive!” _

_ “Thank you, Lien-” _

_ “You be all tender and crap, I’ll kill the monster. NOBODY HURTS MY FAVORITE CLERIC YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” _

_ A pair of hands hauled him away from the cave wall, and Redcloak groaned in pain as his eye tried to focus, before somebody was picking him up like he weighed almost nothing (not entirely off the mark because he’d been using all of his considerable Charisma to feed Lien and O-Chul most of his food, since he was used to fighting in a state where he could count his ribs and those two did more goddamn fighting anyway, but they had to be noble about it, so if he outright told them he was kind of starving himself he’d never get away with it). _

_ “Have you- oh.  _ Oh _ .” _

_ A huff, equal parts amused and pained. He was a cleric- he could help with the second part. _

_ “Cure Light Wounds,” he murmured, screwing his eye shut as his savior started walking. _

_ “I appreciate it, but it’s hardly necessary. You’d probably make better use of it casting it on yourself, since you’ve been feeding us all your rations.” _

_ Ah. O-Chul. _

_ “Heh. Cure Moderate Wounds.” _

_ The headache eased, and the concussion vanished. Redcloak didn’t open his eye, and O-Chul didn’t put him down, a fact the goblin was grateful for since he’d been swaying on his feet a bit. It didn’t stop him from feeding the paladins; they needed it more.  _

_ “Teach me to trust you ever again. Don’t think we’ll let you starve.” _

_ “M used to it. You’re not. I’ve spent most my life with prominent ribs, and I’ve spent most of  _ that _ time fighting, but you two aren’t used to killing monsters more often than you eat. You need to protect the Gatefolk, all I need to do is stay conscious. Which I’ve done under worse conditions.” _

_ O-Chul’s grip tightened, nearly painful in Redcloak’s starved state. _

_ “You- you can’t do that. You can’t do that to us. Please don’t do that to us. I’d like to see you in a healthier state than you were in in Azure City.” _

_ Redcloak tensed, almost imperceptibly. He always did when O-Chul brought up their history. _

_ “Stop it.” _

_ “I tortured you for three months straight, I think-” _

_ “And you have saved my life multiple times, apologized even more than that, starved yourself because you were worried about me, fretted over every wound I got after you were out of spell slots, given me every AC increasing artifact you got your hands on, and given me a purpose in life after Hinjo officially released me from my oath of fealty to Azure City. Stop. Telling. Yourself. That. You. Aren’t. Worthy. Of. Friends.” _

_ “I- wait, what?” _

_ Redcloak opened his eye, staring at O-Chul, who was glaring at him. They were at the first cavern in the tunnel, and he could hear Lien shouting distantly about all the loot she got to claim. _

_ “I gave you a  _ what _ ?” _

_ “Purpose in life? I’m quite sure I pronounced it correctly.” _

_ “Oh, for- you can’t make me your purpose! What does that even mean?” Redcloak exclaimed, glaring daggers at the paladin. _

_ “It means my new unachievable goal that I won’t ever be able to stop working towards is giving you some  _ damn _ self esteem so you stop doing things like  _ starving yourself _ because you’re worried I’m not  _ used _ to living in  _ bad situations _ ! OR HAVE YOU ALREADY FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE THREE MONTHS YOU SO HELPFULLY KEEP BRINGING UP!?” _

_ “I fucking FED YOU, O-Chul, you were a bit more than skin and fucking bones when you STABBED ME IN THE EYE.” _

_ “And!? Hunger is just another kind of pain, and I’m  _ quite used _ to pain! And starving will hurt a whole lot less than  _ this _ !” _

_“Than WHAT!?”__  
_ _“WATCHING YOU DESTROY YOURSELF BEING A LITTLE MORE THAN PASSIVELY SUICIDAL BECAUSE YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY I’D BE DEVASTATED IF I LOST YOU!!!”_

_ Redcloak froze, and silence reigned.  _

_ Tears glimmered faintly in O-Chul’s eyes, and it occurred to the goblin that he’d had this entire argument with the paladin while said paladin was holding him bridal style. _

_ “I-” _

_ “Don’t try to disguise this as anything other than another attempt to kill yourself without feeling guilty about it.” _

_ “...why… why’d you befriend me? After Cliffport? You told me the logical reasons. Not the emotional ones.” _

_ “Because I have much fewer scars than I should,” O-Chul whispered. “Because you had standards and you kept to them. Because I kept waking up after my many foiled escapes without a scratch even when I’d seen my arm snap like a twig hours before. Because the world has been so awful to you and I wanted to be one of the things that wasn’t.” _

_ Redcloak was really glad Lien walked in just then. _

_ Because if he’d been left alone with O-Chul any longer, he’d have kissed him, and that would have been a mistake. _

Redcloak woke up to a six-eyed woman who had deer antlers and three pairs of wings standing over him.

“Wha- SHIT!”

“Nice of you to join us!” Girard called.

The six of them were lying somewhere in the Feywild, by the looks of it. The woman was obviously an archfey. A glance around revealed that Soon and Girard were lounging against a tree, Inkyrius and his brother were perched in said tree, and Vaarsuvius was lying on the ground beneath their ex looking very much like they wanted to die.

“What’s going on?”

“ **Much,** ” the woman said. “ **I am Evarhaler Queen of Tales, and I know how to get you out of here** .”

Redcloak sighed, flopping back down onto the soft mossy ground.

“I’m guessing there’s some fucked up drawback?”

“ **Is there not always one? My power, while great, is winding. I am the oldest archfey in existence. My magic has touched and changed many times, world to world, ever since the first that became a monster. It is how I was able to pull you from out of the Snarl’s path, but in order to set you back upon your own, you must make your way through some of mine.** ”

“What does that mean in Common? I took Orcish in high school, not Cryptic Bullshit,” Redcloak deadpanned. 

“ _ Can you please not piss off the six eyed lady who could kill us with a thought _ ,” Soon hissed.

Evarhaler merely chuckled, which sounded vaguely like pages flipping.

“ **You will live through six stories. Each of you will play one of seven parts, the seventh role filled by a construct resembling whatever person you need to be there in order to make it through. It is the only help I can offer, is the one you need when you need them. There will be one story where you are the hero and one where you are the villain.** ”

Redcloak dusted himself off, standing and helping Vaarsuvius to their feet. Soon sighed and stood, Girard with him, as Inkyrius and Right-Eye dropped to the ground.

“Anything else?” Soon asked.

Evarhaler cocked her head, blinking two pairs of eyes.

“ **Only one of you will know you are in a tale. To the others, it will simply be their life. That, I have no control over, but it will not be the hero or the villain. The stories and their casting will be brought by the mind of the protagonist.** ”

Inkyrius stepped forward, smile tense on their face.

“Why did you save us?”

Evarhaler smiled, the gesture so startlingly humanoid that Redcloak almost forgot who he was looking at.

“ **This world will last eons, and I will finally be able to grow used to the mortal realm. All of the Gatefolk have earned my respect. You have only a few weeks left as humans and elves and goblins. Do not waste them, for the time spent in the stories will be no time at all. Beware of vengeful goddesses. Beware unbroken trusts.** ”

Right-Eye opened his mouth.

The world was consumed by spilled ink and old parchment before he could say anything. Redcloak watched as books and scrolls and carved stone tablets fell past his vision, before all of a sudden the six of them were floating in a world made of torn out pages.

Redcloak’s vision blurred and shifted, and when the world had righted itself they were all dressed…  _ very _ differently.

Soon looked like a Southern prince visiting the Western Continent, blue silk brocades and silver jewelry and there was even a crown on his head. Girard looked like he’d never seen a whole gold piece in his life, wearing his normal clothes but faded, ragged, and torn. Vaarsuvius was wearing a short red tunic and loose pants and boots, the whole thing topped off with assassin’s armor made of black dragon scales, all of it looking as shambled as Girard was. Inkyrius was… slightly hotter, since they were dressed in green velvet so dark it was nearly black, made into a flowing coat and loose shirt and pants. Their hair was done in intricate braids. 

Right-Eye honest to god looked like a peacock who got polymorphed into a goblin and never quite got over how pretty his feathers used to be. Blue and green and purple, all shiny, and the feather motif pulled the whole thing together until he looked like a foreign dignitary at a masquerade ball.

A glance at his own clothing was… almost vertigo inducing. He was dressed like a king. No, scratch that, he was dressed like an  _ emperor _ of the Western Desert, somebody who’d earned his kingdom by building it and wasn’t letting the bitchy nobles or petty foreign royals forget it.

“Well. Aside from myself and Master Draketooth, we are all… quite stunning.”

It escaped approximately nobody that Vaarsuvius said this looking directly at Inkyrius, while blushing profusely.

And then… then the parchment around them started moving, and a book dropped from somewhere above them and landed open on the first page.

_ Once upon a time _ -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love being evil.  
*looks at outline for next few chapters*  
*cackles with glee*


	22. The Dragon and the Magic Lamp: Part One

_ -there was a great empire in the desert. Sultan Redcloak had conquered it from mountains to shore, and still rules to this day, a safehaven for all goblinkind. Across the sea in Azure City, they were unsure how to go about forming an alliance, until a young paladin who’s wife had recently passed volunteered. The Sultan had no heir and no whispers of a secret lady or a quiet wedding stirred, and this paired with the fact that the paladin who had volunteered himself was only fifteen, spurred the Azurites to devise a clumsy, but hopefully effective, plan. _

_ The paladin arrived at the City of Jade, and presented himself as a way to get the goblin nobles- once tribe leaders- to get off his back until a better solution was devisable- until the Sultan found another, the paladin was to be his heir. _

_ Whether the Sultan was impressed by the gesture or amused by the presentation is anybody’s guess, but he accepted immediately after the newly-dubbed Prince had finished speaking. Many of those present found it odd, some swearing that they saw a flash of recognition in the Sultan’s eyes that day, but whatever the reason, the alliance was set and Prince Soon Kim became Sultan Redcloak’s only heir. _

_ Many waited for the Sultan to choose another, or find a wife, but he never did and he made no effort to. Prince Kim grew from fifteen, to eighteen, to twenty, even acquiring a pegasus in that time, but he remained the only heir to the Ammolite Throne, and on his twenty first birthday, the Sultan told Prince Kim that he had no intention of finding another. _

_ Soon Kim would one day taken the Ammolite Throne, be responsible for the City of Jade, and rule the Opheodrys Empire.  _

_ Sultan Redcloak and Prince Kim were not, however, counting on the backlash from the nobility. The Prince was a paladin, and paladins were prone to doing stupid, dangerous, reckless things- which meant that either he would have to give up being a paladin, or he would have to give up being a prince, because the nobles would never allow him to be both. _

_ Knowing what the favor of the Twelve Gods meant to his son and knowing that being able to help so many people as he could while being a prince meant just as much, Sultan Redcloak spared him the choice, confining him to the walls of the palace until the day he took the throne. The prince could Fall for not being willing to follow the divine path, but he couldn’t be cast away by the Twelve Gods for not being  _ able _ to follow the divine path. _

_ Unbeknownst to the Sultan, two in his court conspired against him even after this. A brother he had thought long dead, taught shapeshifting by a bird-maiden of the elven forests, and a baker-turned-mage who had come to the Opheodrys Empire in the hopes of saving their children from a black dragon’s attack, and instead was forced to watch their demise. _

_ It is said that Inkyrius killed the dragon with their bare hands, and that all the magic she had accumulated saw an easy place to stay in the elf. In reality, they had slain the dragon and gone back to the ruins of their cottage, digging through the rubble until they found their long-travelling spouse’s spellbooks. Inkyrius grew to become the most ruthless mage on the continent. Their children were dead. Their spouse either shared the same fate or couldn’t be bothered to prove otherwise. What did a few ignored pleas for mercy matter anymore? When the Sultan had heard of the dragon in his lands and done nothing? _

_ It is said that Right-Eye clawed his way out of his own grave, spitting dirt and blood and venom, fire in his eye and promises of revenge on his lips. Though Redcloak had lost much, and come far, he had made no effort to bring back his brother or his brother’s family. For this, the goblin swore, he would pay. Taught to change into every form of bird, the rogue came to the City of Jade, and together he and Inkyrius conspired to destroy the Sultan. Like every bird-maiden, Right-Eye had a base form, the bird he was most comfortable being and the one who’s feathers adorned his clothing each time he changed back. Right-Eye quickly gained a reputation (kept carefully away from the Sultan’s ears) for always dressing in the same peacock masquerade outfit. He smiled, and didn’t bother telling them that it was because he’d been the parakeet watching them sneak their lovers into their rooms moments ago. _

_ But far below the intrigue and towers of the palace lay the twisting maze of streets and rooftops that made up the City of Jade, and there were two people who had learned to navigate it better than anyone else in the world, by sheer virtue of the fact that the alternative was dying. _

_ The Sultan, the Prince, the Court Mage, and the Court Messenger could say what they liked. The City of Jade belonged to Girard Draketooth and Vaarsuvius of Ivyleaf and nobody else. _

_ Vaarsuvius had found the dragon’s carcass and their children’s graves, too little too late. They had declined the fiends, and paid the price, but even then they had more to lose. _

_ And lose it they did. Xykon perished and the rest of the Order perished with him, a standard lich at the end of a standard dungeon, and after all was said and done, Vaarsuvius arrived at a temple of Tiamat with one last sacrifice to make. They burned their spellbook on the altar. Haley, Elan, Elari, and Nethel were returned to life thinking they had always been a family of four, a simple minstrel and a shopkeeper and the twins found on their doorstep. Vaarsuvius, as promised by Tiamat herself, would never see them again. _

_ Even so, their familiar managed to claw his way out of Tiamat’s grasp. Blackwing was to remain with his master for as long as they lived, and by some miracle, Tiamat allowed it in exchange for one thing: Vaarsuvius would fashion armor from the scales of the dead mother dragon, and slay every person in the City of Jade who tried to make true written laws among the lawless. Vaarsuvius, fresh out of things to do with their life, agreed. _

_ It was during their lifelong crusade killing mafia families, former spies, fallen royalty, and mob bosses that they met one Girard Draketooth, who seemed to have the entire city and then some after him. Given that he didn’t like them any less when he found out about their deal with Dragon Satan, Vaarsuvius was quick to defend him and only marginally slower to befriend the sorcerer. _

_ The pair never ruled the streets, but when you were sick or lost or in trouble, you went to them for a place to hide. Vaarsuvius made a killer soup (never telling that they got all their recipes from the cookbook they’d plucked off Belkar’s corpse) for whatever ailed you, Girard cleared out one of the many nooks and crannies, and they left you with a knife, a blanket, and a piece of paper with the soup recipe on it. Never deferred to, but respected and well-liked regardless among criminals and outcasts, because they harbored, aided, and abetted them. Girard and Vaarsuvius were the ones who held the criminal underworld together in the City of Jade, and out of all the traits the illusionist had, you really wouldn’t expect  _ that _ to be the one that had Prince Kim falling in love with him faster than a fridge out of an airship. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God I love being me. As always, a thank you to ReconstructWriter and UndervaluedAgent for the comments that never fail to make my day. Girard's story is Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, yes, but I'll probably be taking some... creative liberties. Because. It's me.
> 
> Also, a fun fact: yes, Redcloak's throne as the sultan is actually made of ammolite, a very pretty stone that forms in thin sheets. As a result, it's extremely fragile, unless you can do things like carve a rune onto the back of the throne that just perpetually casts Mending on it forever. The fact that Redcloak found a chunk of ammolite large enough to carve a throne is fucking awesome and an extreme flex of wealth and power, considering that no chunk large enough exists on Earth because it comes from shells of ancient sea creatures and is only found in a specific part of Canada. According to some, ammolite is rarer than diamond.
> 
> I just really like gemstones.


	23. The Dragon and the Magic Lamp: Part 2

The sun rose hot and merciless as it always did over the glazed tile rooftops and terracotta buildings of the City of Jade. Despite the name, the first rays of dawn shone off of every color in the world, lighting the already awake metropolis in a faint, neon sort of glow, like light striking facets on a diamond. Girard and Vaarsuvius had been awake for hours already, of course, but there was nothing quite like sunrise in the city.

“Find anything else on the Beshivas?” Girard asked the raven perched on Vaarsuvius’ shoulder.

“Nope. Stupid criminals keep security tighter there than at the palace,” Blackwing groused, perking up a bit when Vaarsuvius fed him a piece of jerky. Girard chuckled, scratching Orina’s ears- as always, the Somali cat was draped elegant as could be around his shoulders.

“ _ Svabol ui hesi frevor nadot _ ?” Orina said, in a voice that was halfway between an elegant madam and a meow. Girard’s friends were weird. It was one of his favorite things about them.

“ _ Si tir ti vucot. _ Any other way in? Convenient skylights or something?”

Vaarsuvius sighed.

“Unfortunately, no. It is almost as though criminal families are beginning to catch on to the fact that every mafia which establishes itself in the City of Jade is promptly murdered.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

The assassin rolled their eyes, and Girard grinned. Sunrise was over- it was time to start the day the only proper way to do so.

A sumptuous, varied, stolen breakfast.

The illusionist stepped to the edge of the roof, turned to look at his friend, and dropped backwards off the building.

“I can’t believe the guards are willing to kill us over a fucking  _ cookie _ !” Girard shouted, ducking into an alleyway and dashing full speed to the street on the other side. Vaarsuvius, hot on his heels, had not stopped swearing creatively in Elvish the entire time the city guard had been chasing them. 

The two bolted through the busy road, an abandoned hotel, left next to the brothel that bought and then freed slaves, duck beneath the crumbling archway, through the charred remains of the Stila House, dodge the dagger that just got thrown at your head, slip through the hole in the wall hidden by an illusion, collapse panting on the ground on the outskirts of the Tetrad Market (named as such because it’s wares were supposedly brought in from all directions by the Four Winds).

“I- do not believe- we should- anger anyone- else- today,” Vaarsuvius panted, an exhausted Blackwing diving down to land once more on their shoulder. Girard probably had holes in his collarbone from how hard Orina dug her claws in- oh well.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s- that’s a good idea. Dragon Satan’s holy mission can wait. I’m starving.”

After the two had caught their breath and straightened up, they began meandering through the marketplace, buying a couple loaves of bread and browsing,  _ not _ pickpocketing or shoplifting,  _ browsing _ .

Vaarsuvius hadn’t learned  _ nothing _ from all the time they spent rooming with Haley, and they figured it was the best way there was to honor the rogue’s memory. Besides, the necklace was horribly overpriced anyway.

“Why on earth were there so many guards out, anyway? Usually we get away with that no problem, you’ve got the patrol schedules memorized, and only the castle guards or the city officers get rings that make it easier to see through illusions.”

Vaarsuvius didn’t answer for a minute, swiping an apple and tossing it in the air before catching it again. Girard scratched Orina’s ears as a reward for her snagging a new scarf for him with her claws, promptly taking off the old one which now had a sizable tear in it.

Thanks a million, government issued daggers the city guards were trained to throw.

“I did receive word that the Prince has seemingly vanished from the palace.”

At  _ that _ , Girard stopped walking, turning an incredulous look on his friend.

“The prince who’s confined there until he takes the throne. Who is under guard. Always. Who’s adoptive father is an epic level high priest of the  _ Dark One _ , for fucks sake.  _ How _ ?”

“I am unable to discern for certain the methods, but by all appearances… he seems to have fled the palace of his own volition.”

“By Astilabor. That sounds like something that’s going to make our lives a lot harder.”

“Indeed. It may be prudent of us-”

A shrill scream of pure terror cut Vaarsuvius off. Girard’s eyes flashed deep purple, and Vaarsuvius’ clever little knives were already in their hands. 

Purple eyes met gold ones.

“Wanna be good people?”

“I fail to see what else we might spend the day on.”

The pair plunged through the crowd, arriving barely thirty seconds later at what was… definitely a scene.

A woman was huddled on the ground, vibrating in pure terror as one of the merchants raised his sword over her head. Girard could already see cuts on her wrists, likely from where she’d blocked the hits before. 

“I told you to pay up, whore.”

“I didn’t- I didn’t take one of your fruits, I swear, your son, he, he told me I looked like I hadn’t eaten enough and he gave me one-”

“LIAR! I’ll not have you slandering my boy after you’ve already contaminated his bed!”

“I  _ never _ -”

Girard was about to cast a spell and throw the man- who was a good two feet taller than the far-too-thin girl on the ground in front of him- into the nearest wall.

Somebody intervened for him.

“It would be wise-” said a smooth, measured voice “-to sheathe your sword, sir.”

Girard frowned, glancing at Vaarsuvius. Since when did anybody besides them intervene in this sort of thing?

The merchant whirled, and Girard followed his accusing gaze to a man cloaked and clothed in deep blue fabric. His accent wasn’t Western, and the way he spoke nearly screamed ‘NOBLE’, but the katana in his hands and the fact that he held it correctly most certainly did not. He was muscular, but not like the man he was apparently facing off with- the blue stranger had an acrobat’s physique, and his jawline could cut glass.

The sorcerer realized he was blushing as he quietly unsheathed his swords. Vaarsuvius was already crouched next to him, poised to intervene on the stranger's behalf. Two long, slender daggers, both heavily enchanted, one mithral, the other adamantine, sat in their hands, perfectly made for them by Tiamat herself. Girard had seen those wicked little blades cut through armor, stone, and flesh like it was butter.

Tiamat may have been a bitch, but she was  _ not _ lazy when it came to gifts.

The pair watched as the stranger stepped forward, immediately putting himself between the merchant and the girl in one graceful swoop. The elf and the sorcerer traded curt nods- Vaarsuvius began circling around the crowd to get behind the merchant, and Girard’s eyes flared purple as the girl turned invisible, replaced immediately by a silent illusion. Both spells were cast too quickly for anyone to tell.

Girard looked at where the knew the girl was, and molded his magic a bit to carry his voice to her and her alone.

“You’re invisible. I’ve got an illusory double of you sitting right where you are. It won’t be disturbed. Just come towards me, and I’ll get you out of here.”

Small indents in the dust of the street were the only signs the girl had listened. Within moments, Girard had a shaking bundle of person in his arms- he promptly dropped the invisibility.

“Get to the ruins of the old library. Tell the woman at the gate that the Dragons sent you. You’ll be safe.”

The girl nodded, eyes wide, and ran off. Girard grabbed his twin swords again. The merchant didn’t look like he was letting this go without a fight.

He spotted Vaarsuvius behind the man, practically one with the shadows, and the dagger the merchant had sheathed behind his back. The stranger wasn’t in for a fair fight anyway- now it just wasn’t a fair fight in his enemy’s favor.

The merchant lunged, the stranger blocked, and Vaarsuvius stayed where they were.  _ Intervene when you need to. _

The merchant stabbed, and his blade was batted away by the stranger’s. It was obvious who the better fighter was- the blue-cloaked man was dancing right now, and the merchant was already sweaty. A slash, parried, another stab, sidestepped, a swing blocked, the merchant’s own momentum used against him, the stranger crouching graceful as a unicorn into a fighting stance again. It was  _gorgeous_ to watch, solely because of the obvious skill the mystery man possessed.

Of course, no amount of skill will protect you from the lucky shots of a chronic dumbass, and when the merchant got a solid slash in on the stranger’s thigh, the dance tripped up to a halt.

The merchant put another deep cut on the man’s bicep, and then another stab on his leg, and the stranger fell to his knees, and Vaarsuvius lunged.

Pitch black adamantine tapered perfectly into a wicked point plunged into skin, then flesh, then bone, and Girard heard the telltale  _ CRACK _ of Vaarsuvius’ iridescent black dagger breaking yet another clavicle, as the elf withdrew it just as quickly as they’d swung. The merchant would be lucky to be able to even hold his sword again in six months.

Naturally, the man screamed.

The stranger looked understandably horrified, and Girard thought that would be the end of it until the merchant switched hands and swung down towards the stranger’s head. His blade  _ CLANGED _ against Girard’s own, and the merchant roared before stumbling sideways, swinging his sword again, this time at Girard’s illusion of the girl. 

The illusionist stomped on the stranger’s blade as the merchant’s sword turned the illusion into pretty purple sparkles. He stumbled once, then twice, then slumped to the floor. It seemed Vaarsuvius had nicked an artery again. Oh well.

He offered his hand to the blue-cloaked figure, sheathing his swords to do so.

“You  _ killed him _ ,” the man hissed. “Are you not the slightest bit worried that the city guard will track you down?”

“No. We need to get out of here before the crowd turns on us. They always do, and I’m not up for a mob today.”

“Where’s the girl?”

“I turned her invisible and replaced her with an illusion. She’s on her way to a safehouse.”

“...do you have a hideout of your own?” The stranger muttered, as though it physically pained him to say that.

“Where the gods themselves can’t find us,” Girard replied. The stranger took his hand and Girard hauled him to his feet, not letting go of his hand as he, the man, and Vaarsuvius make their way to their favorite hiding place.

Girard turns around once, to check on the man’s wounds.

The cuts are gone like they were never there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Astilabor is the dragon goddess of wealth, so 'By Astilabor' is basically the Aladdin-Draketooth equivalent of 'jesus'. Vaarsuvius' lovely daggers are made by a goddess, custom conjured from thin air, so not only are they better balanced, lighter, stronger, and never need sharpening, they're also so sharp they can cut plate armor with a little more difficulty than butter, aka, you get a +10 to hit. Tiamat is not stingy. Fortunately the daggers are not cursed. They do match perfectly, the only difference being that one is the silver-blue of mithril and one is the green-sheened obsidian of adamantine. The adamantine dagger is named Mitnena (Lightless, in Draconic) and the mithril one is named Itmentora (Brightened, in Draconic). Feel free to use them in your D&D campaigns on the condition that you tell your players where you got them.
> 
> Official stats for 5e:  
+10 to hit  
Roll percentage. If you make it over 90%, you've hit something vital and the enemy is considered to have lost use of a limb or eye (DM's choice which it is), giving them disadvantage on every attack except the ones they make at you, which have advantage, since their anger at you beating the shit out of them is extremely potent.  
1d12 + your Dex modifier + your Intelligence modifier for each dagger's damage.  
These daggers also serve as the keys to some of Tiamat's most legendary temples, since they belonged to the elf who was technically her Champion. Any clerics or priests of Tiamat recognize the daggers for what they are unless you've hidden them, in which case they must make a DC 15 + your intelligence modifier Investigation check to find the daggers. Roll a d20- if you roll a 1 or a 2, they react in anger, believing you to have stolen them from their rightful place, and you must make a DC 18 Charisma check to calm them. If you roll above a 1 or 2, they treat you with great respect. If you roll a 20, they treat you with the same reverence that they would treat the original holder of these daggers, which is a lot.  
If you are a cleric or paladin to another god, you must switch to Tiamat's faith in order to use the daggers.  
If a spellcaster of 17th level or lower attempts to enchant the daggers, the enchantment doesn't take no matter what.  
The daggers can cut through armor, even metal armor, unless it is made of mithril or adamant, in which case the daggers bounce off harmlessly. The creature's AC is lowered in an amount equal to either the wielder's Int or Dex modifier, whichever is lower, on a successful hit if the creature does not have natural armor, until it is at a 15 AC or unconscious/dead. If it does have natural armor and is wearing armor, it's AC can only be lowered to it's natural AC.   
The lore blurb:   
These twin daggers appear more perfectly crafted than any mortal creation you've come across, one made of the telltale silver-blue mithril, and the other of an obsidian-like metal with an iridescent sheen that is apparently adamantine. Long and thin, these blades are deceptively strong, able to cut through even enchanted armor. Once the prized weapons of Tiamat's only elven Champion, who's name has been lost to time and is now only known as 'Dragonslayer', these daggers have not aged in the slightest, still sharper than the finest razor despite being practically relics...


	24. The Dragon and the Magic Lamp: Part 3

In the half-caved in dome of an old astronomy tower, Girard and Vaarsuvius sit the stranger down on a bunch of cushions. The elf begins brewing a pot of tea from the hibiscus blend they snagged last week, and Girard flops onto a stolen cushion across from the man as Vaarsuvius works.

“So, what’s your name? And why are you picking fights in the middle of the marketplace?”

The stranger opened his mouth and then closed it, seemingly struggling to come up with a response.

“I- I wasn’t  _ picking a fight _ with him, he was attacking someone who couldn’t even defend herself-”

“Which happens all the fucking time in this city. Usually people don’t get too worked up about it.”

“Unless they’re getting attacked.”

“Even then, it’s not really like they expect anyone to help. If the odds are shit and the attacker’s a dick and the victim clearly isn’t guilty of whatever batshit accusation got thrown at them, ‘Suves and I will intervene. Otherwise… it’s not really worth the risk. Especially with how prone people are to frame you for starting the damn fight.”

The stranger looked appalled, and Girard raised his eyebrows.

“What? Do they not have street fights where you’re from?”

“...well. I thought not,” he says quietly, and Girard starts to wonder just how naive this guy is.

“Anyway, spirits of justice that like to sit back and watch the world burn aside, you didn’t tell me who you were.”

The man opens his mouth to answer and nothing comes out. Girard has plenty of experience with bad liars who don’t have pre-prepared fake names, so he switches to his usual tactics.

“If you don’t give me a name then I will. And- I’m gonna need you to take the cloak off.”

The man huffs, crossing his arms and Girard’s pretty sure he’s glaring under his hood.

“It’s. Um. I- do you promise me you won’t tell the guards where I am?”

“...yeah okay. I solemnly swear neither I nor Vaarsuvius will tell the guard where you are.”

“You agreed to that quickly.”

“We get that request a lot.”

The stranger mutters something under his breath, obviously not happy about this but taking what he can get. A sword-calloused hand reaches up and tugs the hood off, and the man turns to face Girard with a small sigh.

Girard promptly falls off the cushion, a low, angry hiss sliding past his lips, his grandfather’s growl already in his throat. Because the man he just led to his and Vaarsuvius’ hiding place is the prince. The prince knows where they are, he’ll have them arrested the minute he knows-

“Master Draketooth? What-”

Vaarsuvius’ ears go flat, both hands on their daggers the minute they see Soon Kim’s face. The prince raises his hands, a surrender if Girard’s ever seen one, and the illusionist draws one of his swords- he won’t press it to the prince’s skin, but he’s not about to trust him either.

“Please. Just. I’ll get out of here, right after sunset, I just need a place to hide.”

“Why leave your gemstone palace?” Vaarsuvius asks, voice light but there’s something low and creeping and dangerous lacing the edges of their words.

“Because you can’t do things like intervene in street fights or help people there.”

“And?”

“And I want to? I’m a paladin? I’m a decent person? What do you want me to say?”

Girard sighs, lowers and sheathes his sword, and sits back down.

“It’s a lost cause no matter what he wants, ‘Suves.”

“Hmph. Your royal highness seemed remarkably unaware of the state your kingdom was in.”

“...because I can’t leave the palace, and because NOBODY DOES THEIR PAPERWORK ACCURATELY. I’ve got no way to be informed about  _ anything _ , and my father rarely if ever leaves the palace both in solidarity with me and because half the planet wants his head on a pike. So either our entire guardforce is corrupt, or the citizens lie all the time, or someone in court is editing everything before it gets to us. I’m inclined to believe it’s the second option, because nobody on this  _ continent _ trusts the people who have  _ sworn to keep them safe _ .”

Girard can feel a headache coming on.

“You- because the people who swear to keep us safe almost always endorse slavery or something equally fucked up, idiot.”

“ _ Please _ assure me that you did not just insult the prince,” Vaarsuvius hissed, and Girard gave them the ‘well I could but we’d both know I was lying’ look.

“Anyway!” Girard says, throwing his hands up and resigning himself to his fate. “You came, you saw, why now?”

“What?”

“Why break out now? If you haven’t done it in the last three years why do it now?”

“...that… might have something to do with the sudden influx of marriage offers,” Soon admits, somewhat sheepishly. Girard takes a moment to entertain the thought that it might not be  _ so _ rude to start beating his head against the nearest flat surface. 

Of course, Orina and Blackwing, who have both been quiet background animals, pick  _ now _ to speak.

“So you left the palace to escape all of your shitty boyfriends?”

“They are  _ not _ my boyfriends,” Soon says, and there’s enough horror on his face for Girard to believe him. 

_ I wonder what that’s like. Getting proposals from a bunch of shitty royals and having to accept one. _

“ _ Si jika kii jaci ui zyak seanf coi _ ,” Orina says, and she’s got a point, so Girard translates.

“Why are you so against getting married to one of a hundred royal brats?”

“I- you wouldn’t un-”

“Try me,” Girard says dryly, and all at once Soon just sort of… slumps. 

“I agreed to be Azure City’s alliance offer because my wife had died about two months prior.”

“Hang on, you were  _ fifteen _ .”

“And hopelessly in love. Shut up.”

“No.”

“Fine. I don’t- okay, you know what? I hate the guts of every single one of the suitors who have come to the palace. All of them. They’re entitled assholes who couldn’t care less about me and I’m in the unfortunate habit of marrying for love, except the law states I can only marry royalty.”

Soon’s looking at them like he’s waiting for them to argue, but Girard isn’t cruel enough. He can stay one night. One night of freedom.

_ And then you’ll toss him back in the cage, with one taste of freedom to make it even worse. Real good guy behavior _ .

_ Shut up _ .

Just then, the prince tilts his head, looking at them a little oddly.

“What do you two… do?”

“What?”  
“Smuggling? Petty theft? Pickpockets? What?”

Vaarsuvius glances at Girard, seemingly egging him on to answer, so the illusionist does.

“Well… we just. Hide people. We know the city, we know the people, we use it to… I dunno, protect the people who come to us. It’s horribly shady, before you ask. We’re no Robin Hoods.”

“And you’re just going to keep doing this forever?” Soon asks, and Girard blinks, because… he’d never really thought about it.

He never figured he’d survive even this long, but… surely he could do more than wait around for his past to catch up with him. Were he and Vaarsuvius going to spend the rest of their lives running from the city guard? Sure, it was fun, neither of them were ever bored, and there were always new nooks and crannies and people to know and ‘outlaw rulers’ to dethrone (and de-head), but it.

Well, it was starting to become a bit monotonous. But that didn’t matter, because… well, they didn’t have choice. So. Whatever.

“You can stay the night, and you will tell  _ no one _ where you were. Clear?”

Soon’s spine straightens, but there’s nothing military in his posture. Maybe he’d always been nobility. It wouldn’t be surprising.

“Crystal,” Soon says, and Girard decides that he maybe doesn’t hate the prince as much as he used to.

The next morning he finds a very sweet letter from Soon and a pouch of coins.

Oh, he’s definitely alright in Girard’s book.

It takes a grand total of three days after Soon’s little visit for Girard and Vaarsuvius to be caught, but the guards aren’t uniformed and they aren’t employed by any of the notable families, so… fuck.

Girard and Vaarsuvius are grabbed in an alleyway and dragged through some kind of portal, and now they’re in a dark room that looks like it might be part of the castle dungeons, or something, and… and there’s a figure standing in front of a window, with some bird or something on their shoulder, but Girard can’t tell much else-

“I demand to know what your cause for apprehending us was!” Vaarsuvius says, with all the authority of Tiamat’s Champion.

Then the figure turns around and a magelight comes on, and-

_ FUCK _ .

Because Girard knows this face, and he’s starting to think they looked better trapped in brush strokes than they do now. He knows the green hair, the sharp features, and most of all he knows the small, kind smile plastered on Inkyrius’ face.

Vaarsuvius looks like they’ve just gotten slapped in the face with a brick. Inkyrius is holding a spellbook, and Girard can see Vaarsuvius’ familiar illegible scrawl on snatched glimpses of the old pages.

All of a sudden, it clicks.

This is the Sultan’s Court Mage. 

Inkyrius, the dead baker with the pretty smile, is the ruthless, wicked Court Mage who’s gotten away with murder twice. Is this- it has to be an illusion. 

Except he would know.

And it’s not.

“What- what the hell happened to you?” Girard asks in a strangled voice, because people don’t just randomly turn into wicked horrible monsters.

“My children died, my spouse finally showed that they didn’t actually care, and the Sultan did approximately nothing about the Black Dragon terrorizing his countryside. Tends to make you a little unhinged.”

_ Oh boy _ .

Vaarsuvius’ ears are flicking back back forth so wildly that Girard’s worried they’ll fall off when they reply to that.

“The children are fine. I- made a deal with Tiamat. The twins were returned to life along with the only two members of my party that would make decent parents. I’ll never see them again.”

“Does it change anything?” Inkyrius said idly, flipping through the spellbook in their hand. “I mean, really. Does it? You still got them killed to begin with. Because… oh, wait, did you sell your soul for me? Again?”

“No. I set my spellbook alight on Tiamat’s altar, destroyed my ability to use arcane magic of any kind, and swore myself into eternal slavery to a Chaotic Evil goddess for you. I only sold my soul for the children,” Vaarsuvius says, with the sharp-jagged-broken smile they wore when they wanted to remind people they weren’t really sane.

Inkyrius raises an unimpressed eyebrow. Girard’s counting the seconds of life he has left.

“You still haven’t answered my question. Anyway- that’s not why you’re here. You’re here because you’ve somehow managed to slaughter every mafia family, underground network, and mob boss who’s come into the city, no matter how secure. I need something. You’re going to retrieve it for me.”

“Why?” Girard asks. It’s a good question.

“...because I’ll kill you if you don’t? Seriously, the list of horrible things I can do to people is pretty much endless, take your pick for incentives,” Inkyrius drawled, as lazily as if they were musing on whether it was better to buy charcoal or make your own.

And then, because the gods hate them, Inkyrius flicks their wrist and a portal opens underneath them, dropping them in… the middle of nowhere. Sand dunes rise in all directions, nothing in sight but the starry sky.

“I don’t like your spouse,” Girard says, because it’s worth saying.

“Discussing them at this particular time is incredibly ill advised.”

“Okay. Where the hell are we? And what are we supposed to be-”

The temple picks that second to rise out of the sand, first forming out of the sand itself and then solidifying into dust-colored stone. It’s only when two huge double doors finally carve themselves out of nothing that Girard realizes they’re supposed to go inside. 

“Fuck.”

“Indeed.”

He walks up the temple steps. He knows Vaarsuvius is following, even though he can’t hear them- he never can.

It’s surprisingly anticlimactic- just a pair of doors that close behind them and a single room with a single thing in it.

On a small pedestal, there sits an intricately decorated copper-bronze lamp.

“This cannot be the thing- the- Court Mage, would, go to such lengths to merely have us retrieve.”

Girard glanced around the room.

“I don’t see anything else  _ here _ .”

“Nor do I sense any secret doors.”

“Can you check for traps.”

“Unfortunately that is one skill I did not pick up from Miss Starshine.”

“...alright, then. Fuck it.”

And Girard grabbed the lamp.

Nothing happened.

“...okay. Well- oh, for- this thing is dusty as fuck, hang on,” Girard muttered. He swiped the cuff of his sleeve across the lamp’s surface a few times, silently lamenting the state of the metal, before the lamp started  _ fucking glowing _ .

“Shit- oh shit, shit shit shit  _ fuck _ -” 

Girard slammed the lamp back down onto the altar, but smoke was already pouring out of the damn thing and Vaarsuvius’ daggers were in hand.

He wasn’t… totally sure what he’d been expecting.

But it  _definitely_ wasn’t a curly-haired halfling woman in a pretty orange dress flopping onto the floor like a dead fish and wheezing like she hadn’t breathed air in thousands of years.

“Holy  _ CRAP _ , oh, thank you so much you have no idea how awful being holed up in there is. Pro tip: don’t ever wish to become the most powerful being in the universe. Ever. Don’t.”

Girard was still clutching Vaarsuvius’ arm, thirty percent sure they were about to die, and Vaarsuvius’ ears were still pressed flat to their skull even as the elf incredulously eyed the halfling, who finally noticed the daggers.

“Oh, WHOA! Hey! What did I do to you!? Wait, did I steal something?”

“...who are you?” Girard asked.

“Serini Toormuck. Genie of the Lamp. Take your pick.”

“...Serini. Uh. What the fuck?”

“The lamp gives you three wishes. I wished to be the most powerful being in the universe. Now I’m a genie. Whichever one of you rubbed the lamp, you’ve now got three wishes, use them wisely, blah blah blah. I don’t really do the word-twisting thing- never quite had the Intelligence score for it, so. You’re gonna get what you ask for. Lifetime supply of cash? I won’t drop a boulder on you, or something. Just. Gah, I don’t know. Make your wishes, I’ll grant them as you want.”

Girard and Vaarsuvius shared a glance.

“Before I make my first wish-”

“Sweet elven  _ gods _ , please express that this is some… joke.”

“Nope.”

Golden eyes narrowed, squarely fixed on blue ones. Girard didn’t back down, and Vaarsuvius sighed.

“What is it you wish to tell me?”

“Remember when Soon asked us if we were going to keep killing mob bosses and hiding people for the rest of our lives?”

“...I do. It- it was a question I had not thought to ask.”

“What was your answer?”

The elf looked up sharply, brows furrowing as they tried to figure out what Girard’s play was, and finding none.

“Yours was a ‘no’, based upon your reaction to Miss Toormuck,” Vaarsuvius said, something faintly accusing in their tone, because Girard got to choose. He could ditch them if he wanted, but they never got to stop doing this.

“What. Was. Yours.”

“I do not have an  _ option _ so I fail to see the point of making a decision!”

“If I could free you from Tiamat’s pact with a wish. Would you come with me to court.”

“ _ WHAT _ !?”

“I second that,” Serini said.

“ **And I will spare you the trouble, my champion.** ”

_ Oh fuck. _

_ That’s Tiamat. _

A massive five-headed dragon rose, uncurling from around the lamp’s little pedestal, and Girard realized that a) the pedestal was about fifty feet tall b) the stairs of the temple were supposed to end in a sheer drop into a pool of lava and c) Tiamat had curled around the pillar to prevent both of these things from being even remotely noticeable.

“W-what-” Vaarsuvius legitimately looked like they were going to faint, and Girard felt pretty much the same way. Tiamat was speaking with her black dragon head- the green one nudged the lamp a bit, which effectively tossed it into Girard’s chest.

The illusionist grabbed it.

“ **There is hardly a point to godhood if one cannot do a little scrying, wouldn’t you agree?** ”

“I- yes?”

“ **You need not know what I have seen, but I release you from your… given task. You are, of course, still to be my Champion, but no longer must you slay those who would bring laws to the lawless.** ”

Vaarsuvius looked at Girard with pure panic in their eyes. The illusionist himself was still clutching their arm like a vise.

“W-why?”

“ **You’ll find out. But- I have… another boon for you. I have been listening. It did not escape my notice that despite the nature of our agreement, you have sought no escape from it. For this, I give you a gift.** ”

Tiamat lowered her red dragon’s head, releasing a puff of smoke that began to coalesce into a… carpet?

“ **As with the daggers, I am not leaving you ill-equipped for the challenges to come. Farewell, my Champion.** ”

The sliver gray carpet fully formed, and Tiamat vanished.

Sending Girard and Vaarsuvius plummeting towards a pool of lava.

Until, of course, there was suddenly carpet beneath their feet, and Girard was sitting down and grabbing the edge of the fabric with one hand, Vaarsuvius doing the same- the elf had sheathed their mithril dagger, but still held the adamantine one, and Girard had the lamp.

Tiamat was not stingy with the presents. He could practically  _ feel _ the power humming off this thing, only strengthened when Serini appeared on the carpet with them.

“Well then,” the genie said with a mischievous grin “let’s go. Some rules, though- I don’t do Resurrections, I don’t do mind control, and I can’t make someone fall in love with you. Also I don’t kill people. If you want someone dead, do it yourself.”

Girard looked at Vaarsuvius.

“If I- okay, I might want to talk to Soon again.”

“You find him pleasing to look at and admire that he was neither afraid nor hostile when in our hideout, you wish to learn more about my apparently  _ not _ dead spouse, and you wouldn’t hate being Prince Kim’s groom.”

“Shut up. And. I don’t know. Maybe I like him. Maybe I think he’s cute and nice and treats me like a normal person.”

“If you find a way to the court, I will accompany you.”

Serini’s grin widened, and she started rubbing her hands together.

“Serini,” Girard said, turning to the halfling. “I… I wish I was a prince. With a kingdom, and everything, so that even if this doesn’t work out I can still keep nasty dictator shits out of the West.”

“I like you. You know what? I like you enough that I’ll depose Malack. He is still ruling, right?”

“Yeah- the Sultan conquered the desert but left one part for Jirix to rule as King and one part for Malack to rule as… gah, I can’t remember what his title is. But he’s a piece of shit.”

“Surprise family member and an assassination it is!”

Serini clapped her hands together with a sound like the earth itself splitting, and Malack wound up with an adamantine dagger through his eye that very night, courtesy of Tiamat’s Champion, friend to Malack’s estranged distant nephew, the newly named Prince Girard Draketooth.

As soon as he married, he could take the throne and become a king.

“Seriously? This position is permanent?” Girard asked Serini, just two days after his discovery as royalty.

“Oh yeah. Even after your third wish and me vanishing, you’ll be a prince. Well. King, one day.”

“...well.”

Vaarsuvius picked that moment to walk into the sumptuous sitting room, smiling smugly.

“I have just heard rumor that the Prince Soon Kim is both handsome and single from your illustrious court.”

“Who absolutely adore you, by the way. Malack really was a shit,” Serini said.

Girard grinned downright Puckishly.

“Well. Let’s go see what the City of Jade thinks of Prince Girard Draketooth.”


	25. The Dragon and the Magic Lamp: Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #notdead

Girard arrived with a massive fanfare, Serini introducing him to… pretty much everyone in the city, and between the genie and the illusionist, they were more than enough of a distraction for Vaarsuvius to make their way into the palace undetected.

Soon recognized him on sight, and Redcloak knew it, but he let the prince lie to him anyway- it was, after all, how the story went.

Redcloak wasn’t too sure what happened if he deviated from the tale, and he didn’t want to find out, but god was having Soon as a kid a weird feeling. One that gave him a deep and abiding appreciation for the paladin’s mother. And for Girard, when he was out in the real world.

_ The worst part _ , the goblin king mused as he strolled through the hallways of his (his!) palace,  _ is that Everhaler has us all completely pegged. _

Right down to his brother plotting to kill him and Inkyrius going darkside.

Which was… well, pretending not to know that two people in his court were plotting his untimely demise was worryingly easy. Like. Really worryingly easy. Working for Xykon did that to you. The  _ hard _ part was not doing a double take every time he saw Inkyrius and they looked grim, angsty, and murderous.

So all in all: being in a story with the other five members of your party and being the only person aware of it, especially when the two villains were your little brother and an exceptionally kind baker? Sucked.

Currently, Serini and Girard were chatting with Soon- Redcloak had left them alone for… honestly, so he could go pace and clear his head. He didn’t have a hope in hell of actually knowing where Vaarsuvius was given the fact that they were apparently an  _ assassin _ now, but if he had to guess he’d say tracking down Inkyrius, and since there were no birds in the hallway and he had a ring of True Seeing, the Sultan could safely say that he was alone.

...which also sucked. Because he started  _ thinking _ when he was alone.

_ If one of us dies do we come back? Will we remember any of this? Why the  _ fuck _ didn’t I kiss O-Chul during the THREE YEARS I had the chance to do so, I’m gonna die and he’s never going to know that he’s- he’s  _ him _ enough for even sworn enemies to eventually think he hung the moon. _

_ I wonder what he’d think if he could see me now. A king. With an actual fucking palace that I built, instead of stealing. _

Which was the other awful thing about Everhaler’s method: he now had the memories of both his actual life in the real world, and his life as a conqueror in this one.

_ And _ he didn’t have anyone to talk to about any of this, because Everhaler hadn’t made Lien or O-Chul doubles and Right-Eye wanted to tear his throat out (which, justified. Lien would smack him for thinking it, but it was).

_ I miss my friends. _

_ I miss not knowing what running a goddamn country felt like _ .

All the memories were there. He’d grown up, and his village was attacked, and he grabbed the Mantle, and that’s where everything diverged.

Right-Eye and he had escaped separately. Right-Eye found Xykon first, and the pair of them found Redcloak, negotiating with one of the human villages in the Realm of the Dragon, and from there everything had mostly gone to shit the same way it had in the real world, including Right-Eye’s dead family, Xykon becoming a lich, and Redcloak’s life being a collection of bad decisions with boss music playing in the background.

_ Then _ , during the attack on Azure City, his ‘fuck shit fuck I’m supposed to be leading and protecting these people not using them as cannon fodder’ moment had. Extended slightly farther. As in, ‘abandoned attack on Azurites, stole their navy instead, conquered desert for goblins’ farther. Which led to Azure City seeking it’s alliance because a) they wanted their boats back dammit, or at least reparations (which Redcloak had paid), b) he could have fucked them up beyond repair and in all honesty was about to but he had a conscience awakening instead and c) he was pretty sure Elan had, at some point, found a way to influence the Azurite nobility, because one letter had mentioned how ‘totally cool it was’ to be friends with the guy who decided not to kill them all in favor of stealing boats instead.

Gods, but Xykon had been pissed.

_ I’ve still got a country to run, but I swear to God if they make one more thinly veiled suggestion about marrying Soon off to Malack, I’m casting a Disintegrate and I’m not  _ fucking _ regretting it. _

Redcloak’s life had been strange ever since it had been placed in Everhaler’s hands.

Somehow, rounding a corner and seeing Girard looking like an out of place and nervous about it child still surprised him.

“...can I help you?” Redcloak asked, praying he wasn’t irrevocably fucking something up.

“Uh. Yes, ah- Prince Girard Draketooth, at your service. As I’ve recently become the crown prince and king regent until my wedding day, given the untimely death of my uncle, Basileus Malack, I had hoped to perhaps… join the competition you’ve hosted for Prince Kim’s hand in marriage?” Girard said, wincing towards the end. Redcloak sighed internally and started walking again, and the illusionist fell in step with him as the pair took the familiar (to Redcloak) route to the council chamber.

“Of course. Malack’s death is news to me- I’m sorry for your loss.”

_ No, I’m not, nobody’s sorry for that loss, pretty sure Jirix will throw an actual party when he hears about it. _

“Ah. I didn’t… know him too well. It was assumed I’d never inherit the throne, so my family just kept me away from all the courtly backstabbing, and- er-”

“Why do you want to marry my son?” Redcloak asked, turning both of them down another hallway lined with murals.

He hadn’t asked this of the other suitors, currently housed in the West Wing, but part of the goblin was curious about whether he  _ should _ expect to be invited to a wedding when they returned to the real world.

“I- I want to make him happy. Er- I mean I don’t know him very well, but I’ve spent my whole life almost alone, and- he seems to be in the same boat, and- I’ve seen the look on his face, when he thinks nobody can see him. It’s. I want to make it go away. I want to at least try,” Girard said, and the softness in his expression was so jarringly foreign that Redcloak nearly asked him what he’d done with the grouchy sorcerer from ten seconds ago.

Even if he  _ didn’t _ know none of this was real, he’d have been moved by that.

This in mind, Redcloak made his choice.

“You are the first person to come here with the intention of making my son happy and not claiming the throne or the attached bank account. Welcome to the running for Soon’s hand.”

Girard froze, opened his mouth, closed it, and bowed so deep Redcloak worried his back would break.

“I will not let you down.”

“Why aren’t you with Soon right now, if I might ask?”  _ Even though you’re standing in my kingdom, on my polished marble floors _ . “After news of your approach arrived he seemed a little more enthusiastic about welcoming the ‘latest prince’, and I figured he’d want to talk your ear off.” 

“Ah. That. Might be why I asked you if I could join the running. I  _ was _ telling him about this awesome judicial system I saw way up North once, and one of the suitors kind of. Stole him.”

Redcloak stopped walking.

“...Girard.”

“Yes?”

“Please. For the love of all that is holy and the love I hold for my only child.  _ Please _ come out of this competition as it’s winner.”

The stubborn resolution on Girard’s face was heartening.

“I can think of very few lengths I will not go to to ensure that.”

“Good. Don’t tell Soon, though, he’ll get all hung up on the morality,” Redcloak said, with a shoulder pat and a good-natured smile as he began walking away. Oh, they were never living this down when they got back to reality.

“Wasn’t planning on it!” Girard called, and Redcloak’s smile became a little more genuine when he thought of the various elimination rounds he had planned for the suitors.

‘Sitting in with Redcloak as though you’re already married to Soon and acting accordingly in a Council meeting’ was the first, and by god, he couldn’t  _ wait _ to see the obstruction of common sense that was the nobility on the Council and the absolute self absorption that was most of the foreign princes meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fun. And it will continue to be fun. Sorry it took so long tho.
> 
> Redcloak really does adore having a nation that's like, his baby. Being able to help people and fix things is best way to shut the depression up.


	26. The Dragon and the Magic Lamp: Part 5

The day started like all the others, and Redcloak sat down at the Council meeting with the first prince. He hadn’t even called the meeting to order before the idiot opened his mouth.

“I was thinking, I saw this old building on the way over here, it was like, apartments, and it’s really ugly, so how about we tear it down and build a date farm?”

Redcloak looked at the assorted people. Lizarfolk, humans, goblins, hobgoblins, even a couple elves- one of them Inkyrius- neatly divided between advisors, military, and nobility. The advisors? Great. Definitely didn’t get paid enough for this shit, but they were awesome conversation partners and quite honestly some of Redcloak’s favorite people. The military heads? Not really the ‘work friend’ type, but they more than made up for that with the fact that they loved their country and everyone in it. They would fight to the death for the Opheodrys Empire.

The nobles? Pretty much there to drink wine and argue with everything Redcloak said.

“Sultan, I do believe that the Council has, for the first time in their lives, made a unanimous decision,” Serdar Iburx said brightly.

“Get him out of the palace.  _ Now _ ,” Grand Vizier Wiolde said, taking another slight-too-long swing of wine and gesturing idly at one of the guards.

Girard was sitting next to Soon on the edge of one of the many fountains in the flower-laden palace gardens, swinging his legs back and forth like he was five, because he had no idea what the  _ hell _ he was doing. The beautiful prince was perched next to him like the goddamn picture of grace and Girard was supposed to make the guy like him  _ while _ passing all the tests for the suitors  _ and _ pretending he’d been royalty for more than three days.

“So… katanas aren’t… common, out here.”

_ Worst. Conversation. Starter. Ever. _

“No, they aren’t. I brought mine over from Azure City, actually, and I have yet to find another,” Soon replied, measured and poised and neutral, and nothing at all like the blunt vigilante who had no idea what he was doing either.

“What’s Azure City like?”

“Why are you here?”

Girard froze.

“...what?”

“Why is the thief with experience hiding from the city guard showing up at my father’s palace dressed like a prince?”

It was so painfully easy to lie to Soon, the words skipping off Girard’s tongue like pumice on a lake.

“My parents kept me out of the court because they didn’t like Malack, and then they both died, and I was… there was no way in hell I was going back while the albino lizard was still in charge.”

“Vampire.”

“What?”

“Malack was a vampire. I could tell the minute I saw him, but nobody except Father believed me.”

“...that… makes an unnerving amount of sense.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Anyway. Back to how you lied to me.”

_ Am lying to you _ , Girard thought.  _ Am lying to you because you’re beautiful, you’re good, you’re brilliant, and I’ll never hold a candle to that as myself. _

“Yeah. Um. I didn’t want to go back, so I ran and I kept running when the court came looking for the son of the Grand Dux, and I wound up here. Vaarsuvius- the elf with the knives- was my… bodyguard, I guess? Only friend is probably more accurate. My mom found them, and hired them on sight because they were the only person capable of keeping me safe who didn’t know enough about the kingdom to have an agenda.”

“Your parents died and you ran away and became a criminal  _ in another country _ ?” Soon asked incredulously.

_ There’s the morality-driven steamroller I met last week _ .

“...well. Yeah. Sort of. Malack was a dick, and ‘Suves had heard rumors that he was dumping his most dangerous criminals inside your border and leaving, so. We came to make sure you guys didn’t… have to deal with that.”

“Which includes murdering merchants in the Tetrad Market?”

“...unfortunately, yes. ‘Suves is good. The best. But. They’ve spent the last fifteen-”  _ five _ “-years keeping my stupid ass safe, and that pretty much always means ‘kill whoever he’s crossing blades with this time’ and. And I’ve been a prince for a week and I have no idea what I’m doing but you- you seem like you do. You’re smart, you’re good, you definitely don’t deserve to have those assholes throwing themselves at you day in and day out.”

_ Too honest? Too cocky? Too rude? _

Soon sighed, and didn’t relax.

“Well. At least I can be sure that you know how to handle yourself in a fight.”

Vaarsuvius’ footsteps didn’t make a sound- hell, they barely made an impact in the marble-floored hallway.

That didn’t stop Inkyrius from finding them.

“You  _ know _ that I recognized you the minute you two set foot in the entrance hall,” the baker- wizard? Living embodiment of Vaarsuvius’ failures?- drawled.

The green-haired mage was leaning against one of the pillars, dressed in the same ankle-length so-dark-it-was-almost-black green velvet coat as last time.

Their eyes were so cold and their face was so cruel and there was no apron, no flour stains, no cocoa smudges on their cheeks or wildflowers in their hair, there was no smile, no warmth, no light, no  _ Kyrie _ -

“Of course you did,” Vaarsuvius said tersely. “I favored you above every other elf my age for a reason, after all.”

Inkyrius’ lips twisted into a cruel smirk, as they idly began walking towards the other elf. Emerald green sparks flickered off the mage’s fingers, and Vaarsuvius’ hands went to their wicked little knives.

“You’re not seriously thinking you can stand up to me in a fight with  _ those _ , are you?” Inkyrius asked dryly. “Honestly. All that prattling about arcane power that led me to using your spellbooks when I dug them up- I hope for your sake you weren’t lying to me.”

Vaarsuvius wasn’t sure they could ever lunge for their spouse with the blades Tiamat gave them. Right now they weren’t even sure they could move.

_ They’re dangerous- they’re  _ Kyrie _ \- Kyrie’s gone. Inkyrius, Inkyrius the Court Mage, Inkyrius the Dragonslayer- _

_ Inkyrius the Dragonslayer, and you and Master Draketooth are known as ‘The Dragons’. _

“Is there another stretch of empty desert you’d like to send me to?” Vaarsuvius was clipping their words, hands on the hilts of their knives, ears laid flat (good thing they only pulled their hair back from their face so it still covered said ears)-

_ “-and remember, V, no matter what’s happening, you don’t ever let them know you’re scared. You’ve got at least some control in the situation until the moment you look like you don’t,” Haley said, preparing her friend for their trip into one of the six entrances to Xykon’s labyrinth. _

_ It was supposedly full of the servants of the dungeon’s previous owner, and Vaarsuvius didn’t stand a chance of fighting them all. _

_ “Oh! One more thing,” Haley said, turning to rifle through her Bag of Holding. “Take this. It was Mom’s, and then mine, and if I don’t come out the other side of that thing I want it to be yours.” _

The clip sat heavy in Vaarsuvius’ hair now, platinum and cut glass forming an arrow tipped with a four point star and fletched with little lockpicks, and they already knew what was written on the inside of it.

_ There is no illusion so powerful as fear. _

Inkyrius’ smirk widened, sharpened, and Vaarsuvius inhaled and exhaled and reminded themself of who they were.

_ If you want to be a monster, Inkyrius- _

“Empty? You  _ have _ become a better liar.”

_ -then you can face one as well. _

“True though the observation is, I must say that I am still nowhere near the level of skill of the person who managed to convince me they loved me for forty years.”

Inkyrius’ ears tilted back, and the mage’s smirk morphed into a snarl.

The two elves began circling each other.

“I know who you two are. And I’ll find a way to prove it.”

“I sincerely wish you luck with that,” and Vaarsuvius lunged.

_ “Don’t hesitate.” _

_ Haley was choking out the words, speaking around the gash in her abdomen. Xykon had fallen and they’d all paid the price, were  _ paying _ the price, as the lich’s soul possessed everyone who failed a Will save.  _

_ Vaarsuvius was gripping one of Haley’s hands as tightly as they could, praying to  _ anything that hadn’t forsaken them _ that the rogue, at least, would live. _

_ Elan was dead, Durkon was dead, Belkar had fallen before even making it out of the maze, and now Roy advanced, red gleaming in the fighter’s dark eyes, sword raised. _

_ “When he gets me too. Don’t hesitate.” _

_ The sword clattered to the ground, a green fletched arrow sprouting from Roy’s throat, and when Vaarsuvius turned back to their best friend in the world it was to find Haley’s eyes glowing bright, bloody red. _

The attack caught Inkyrius off guard, because the mage didn’t dodge when their spouse left a sizable gash on their bicep, shoved them into the floor, and took of running without making a sound.

Vaarsuvius sprinted away from the scene, and pretended that the blood on their mithril knife belonged to  _ anybody else _ .

There were tears dripping down their cheeks, and they stumbled once, twice, fell with their back to the wall and breath too quick in their chest to get any air and  _ I hurt Kyrie I hurt Kyrie IhurtKyrieIHURTKYRIEshould’vebeenbetterdonebetterknownbetterHURTKYRIEnotenoughnotgoodenough- _

“Holy- hey. Hey. Can you hear me?”

A soft voice, and the shifting of expensive fabric as whoever it was crouched.

Vaarsuvius gave a shaky nod, not lifting their head from their knees. They were curled into a ball so tightly it was almost painful.

“Okay. Just. Focus on my voice, okay? Can you do that?”

Another nod.

“Alright. Breathe. In, two, three; out, two, three. In, two, three; out, two, three.”

Whoever it was kept counting slowly, in the same soft tones, low enough that it didn’t grate on Vaarsuvius’ ears. The elf inhaled, and exhaled, shakily at first, too quickly or too slow, but eventually they managed to wrangle their breathing in time with the person’s soft, slight accent.

“Thank- thank you,” Vaarsuvius said, when their stomach stopped feeling like it was full of rocks. 

“No problem. Is there anything else I can do? Walk you back to your room, have some tea sent up, anything?”

“Ah- could- could you walk me back to my room?”

“Of course.”

Whoever it is helps them stand, and Vaarsuvius comes face to face with a goblin who’s missing his left eye and wearing a truly gorgeous peacock costume.

_ Probably a performer, then _ .

“Thank you,” the elf says, again, because it bears saying.

“No need. I’m Right-Eye, by the way.”

“Vaarsuvius.”

“So what got you into that state? If you don’t mind my asking?”

The pair begin walking, and Vaarsuvius silently steers the goblin in the direction of the quarters allotted to them by Girard’s involvement in the competition for Soon’s hand.

“Ah- I encountered someone who I had thought I’d seen the last of.”

“Like- ‘went to get milk and never came back’ seen the last of, or ‘I murdered you ten years ago’ seen the last of?”

“We were happily married until I accidentally incurred the wrath of a dragon that destroyed our house and murdered our children, and I had thought it killed you as well.”

A long, long silence followed that statement, as Vaarsuvius turned them down the hallways where their room was.

“... _ shit, _ ” was the response Right-Eye finally settled on. “Wait. You’re here with one of the princes, right?”

“Indeed.”

“Okay. You need a friend and guide because court bullshit is… well, bullshit. Also, I want to help you maybe avoid having panic attacks in the hallway in the future.”

Vaarsuvius’ golden eyes narrowed.

“Why?”

They were expecting a wide variety of replies.

“Because you’re interesting” was not one of them.

“... _ what _ ?”

“You’re rooming in a bodyguard’s quarters, but you don’t dress like any bodyguard I’ve ever seen, and from the looks of it you fight like an assassin. With two knives I couldn’t buy with ten thousand souls, because Tiamat only makes weapons for one person.”

Vaarsuvius froze.

“You’re her Champion, and you’re with that late arrival- Draketeeth?”

“Draketooth. Yes. And yes. What of it?”

“Like I said. You’re interesting. The only interesting thing to happen here in pretty much forever. I dislike boredom and thusly will do anything in my power to keep interesting people safe, sane, and friendly.”

“...truly.”

“Yep. Also, nobody knows this place better than I do.”

“...very well. Do not expect me to open up quickly, but your offer of friendship is… accepted.”

“Excellent,” the goblin said, turning to walk away and let the elf rest. Vaarsuvius was almost through the doorway, having fumbled with their keys a bit, when Right-Eye called out to them from the end of the hallway.

“Oh! One more thing!”

“Yes?”

“Don’t mention my existence to the Sultan, he’s ignoring me for now but I’m pretty sure I’m dead if he stops!”

“...consider it done.”

After all, the Sultan was just a person. It was entirely likely the performer had simply made too sharp a jest about him, and he was trying to let it ride without being forced by courtly convention to execute the peacock who wandered around helping people having panic attacks in the hallways.

Vaarsuvius closed their bedroom door behind them.

“You look like shit,” Blackwing said, from the blanket nest he’d been lounging in all day. “What the hell happened?”

“...I do not wish to speak of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Serdar’ is the Ottoman equivalent of the rank of General. A Grand Vizier is basically a Prime Minister. I’m not totally sure I got them right, but. Fuck man, I’m trying (and cursing myself for picking a fairy tale that uses Ottoman court ranks).


	27. The Dragon and the Magic Lamp: Part 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every goddamn time I update the Not Dead statement is applicable.
> 
> I need like a schedule or something for this.

Time passed too quickly and too slowly simultaneously, as prince after prince was sent away, as Girard tried, with less and less success, to get Soon to open up, as Vaarsuvius found themself having tea with Right-Eye almost daily, and as Serini materialized and vanished hither and thither at will.

Girard had not made another wish, and this bothered her more than it should. All the smart lampholders she’d met had taken their time, made one wish and seen how it panned out before making another, and she’d never been this antsy before.

“Really? Nothing? Come on, there’s  _ always _ something,” Serini said, sprawled on the couch in Girard’s ornate room, currently lit by various magic and candle lights because it was almost one in the morning. Vaarsuvius was perched on a chair, and Girard himself was sitting at the edge of his bed. The room really was top-of-the-line- a balcony overlooked the gardens and the city beyond them, the bed was covered by two sets of curtains- one gauzy and transparent, and one make of soft, heavy velvet, the floor was done in gorgeous glazed tiles and the bathtub was actually a crystal clear pond fed by a small waterfall set into the floor. The pillows- both cushions on chairs and couches and on the bed itself- were fluffier than baby birds, all the upholstery was done in silk, and Serini had yet to find a way to sit on the three chairs, two couches, and beautifully carved oak tea table that wasn’t obscenely comfortable. A fully stocked desk sat just beneath one of the spotless windows, and, like the tea table, had been made with enough time and effort to make it worth more than a Resurrection.

“Not… not this time,” Girard said, obviously lost in thought while staring at his (soft grey suede, they’d taken the time to get three wardrobes made up before leaving the kingdom and travelling here) boots.

The illusionist wasn’t telling her something. The assassin was likewise keeping secrets.

Serini had lived ten thousand years longer than any halfling should. Many people believed that she had learned nothing, and they believed that because she wanted them to.

Because she was the most powerful being in existence, and the less people remembered that, the less she was asked to prove it.

“Well. There are fifteen princes left for Soon to choose from. Once it’s narrowed down to three, it’s up to him, and we’re past competition territory and into wooing territory. Now. Vaarsuvius is hiding something behind their back and they have been since we walked into the room, and Girard is absolutely despondent and denying it with all of his considerable stubbornness, and I might be older than this kingdom and everyone in it, but my patience is not infinite and I am not  _ interested _ in fucking around with silly court drivel while I wait for you to make another wish or get the lamp stolen from under your nose.”

Girard and Vaarsuvius both looked up sharply, eyes of blue and gold reflecting the same worry-tinted surprise. 

Serini grinned. It wasn’t a grin. It was a baring of teeth.

“So? A wish? Or a secret? Or a plan for what you’ll want later? I like having goalposts, they make the time I spend magically enslaved to someone’s will shorter.”

The pair of mortals opened their mouths, closed them, and looked at each other to have one of those silent conversations Serini knew how to hear.

“Ah… um. I… kind of have everything I want. Or at least a way to get it. So… ‘Suves?”

“My life is fucked, regardless of the angle I choose to look at it. I do not think it to be salvageable without considerable magical alterations to history, or at the very least my… at the very least Inkyrius’ current… mind.”

_ Ah. Ethical about your loved ones till the very end.  _

“You sure?” Serini asked, with the sort of tissue-paper-thin casualness of people who are very fucking done. “Not even a divorce?”

Apparently the thought hadn’t even occurred to them, because Vaarsuvius gave a full body jolt, almost fell off the couch, and their ears went flat against their head. 

“I- I am- I am. I am still. Married. To them. Oh, gods…”

Girard looked concerned in that ‘I’m depressed as hell but mustered the energy to give a shit’ way, and Serini felt, for the first time since she’d been capable of dying, her patience finally run out.

“Make your second wish, Draketooth. Before I stop feeling charitable enough not to twist it however the fuck I want.”

Girard blinked.

“Um… I wish that no matter what happens both Vaarsuvius and I will die of old age?”

Serini inhaled, exhaled, and smiled.

Girard found himself looking closer at that smile now that he knew the genie wasn’t without sharp edges and raw scars. It wasn’t happy. Genuine, but not happy, not vicious, just… sad. Sad and resigned and trapped.

He’d become one of two pins holding the City of Jade’s criminal underworld together for a reason, and that reason was that he freed people. Every member of the ugly underbelly this city hid respected him and Vaarsuvius, hell, most of them actually  _ liked  _ them, and that was because they never let people stay trapped. They faked deaths and cast spells and set up hidden little routes to get you anywhere you needed to go, because Vaarsuvius was tied by a god and Girard was tied by his endless list of fuckups, and they refused to let anyone else suffer the same fate.

The telltale wash of Wish magic came over him, and it didn’t quite fade, just like it hadn’t when he’d become a prince. The illusionist wasn’t sure if it was a genie thing or a Serini thing, but it made you smell like fresh baked cookies and petrichor while it left you feeling soft and lazy and sun-warmed.

“...and after we survive this, I’m gonna wish for you to be free,” Girard said. He would have to wait until either he and Soon were engaged or he’d been kicked out of the palace- the chance of them getting attacked by Vaarsuvius’ crazy  _ spouse _ , a bitter loser, or a cheating rival was too great for him to want to risk a halfling who, to the best of his knowledge, didn’t have combat experience. And he hadn’t included her in the ‘die of old age’ wish because he was an impulsive idiot.

Back in reality, Serini fell off the couch in shock.

“You- oh you motherfucker you better not be lying to me I  _ swear _ -”

Girard put his hands up in the universal sign of ‘don’t kill me’.

“I’m  _ not _ . My entire life and career as a scoundrel was built on freeing people from everything, legality included, and there’s… not really anything either of  _ us _ need. I just wanna make sure we all make it through this alive first, cause if you became mortal and got murdered by a bodyguard like an hour later that’d suck and I’d never forgive myself.”

The halfling on the floor looked like she was going to start crying if he didn’t shut up, so he did, and Serini promptly launched herself at him, catching him in a hug so tight Girard was pretty sure he heard his ribs crack.

“ _ Thank. You. _ ”

“...you’re… welcome.”

Vaarsuvius walked over, and both Girard and Serini pulled the elf into the hug.

They stayed that way for almost an hour.

  
  


Dawn saw Girard and Vaarsuvius, sleeping side by side with a genie sandwiched between them, both waking up ready to tell their two friends what they were hiding.

In Girard’s case, it was the problem of never actually getting to spend enough time with Soon to… to anything, really. Talk to him or listen to him or even spar, the Heir of Ammolite was always whisked away by another suitor before Girard could get jack shit done and make good on his promise to the Sultan. 

In Vaarsuvius’ case, it was a shockingly simple solution, inside the pages of their old spellbook, stolen back from Inkyrius’ study.

“The spell creates a pocket-dimension glade accessible through a means chosen entirely by the spellcaster. When I last dealt with it, I was attempting to translate it from divine to arcane magic, but considering that I can now use the former and sold my ability to cast the latter, I see no need to continue such research.”

“But it’s synced with time in the Material Plane?”

“Indeed.”

Girard worried at his lip.

“...okay, so now I need to mention all this to Soon.”

  
  
  


“...your bodyguard is  _ what _ .”

“Tiamat’s. Tiamat’s Champion,” Girard said weakly, coming to the sudden and unfortunate realization that any prospects he had with Soon were not long for this world.

They were currently sitting at one of the small tables in the palace’s lush gardens, Girard having managed to snatch the prince away from the court for a nice lunch away from… well, everyone.

Soon pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Is there anything  _ else _ I should know?”

_ Serini’s a genie, I’m only here because of a Wish, I’m madly in love with you and horribly insecure, Inkyrius is evil, Vaarsuvius is still married to them, your dad tasked me with wooing you. _

“Nnnnnno.”

“Okay. Great. How… how quickly can they set up the glade?”

Girard only saw it because he hadn’t once taken his eyes off the prince, but Soon’s shoulders relaxed, just a bit. It seemed that they did that more often around Girard than around anyone else.

“They can have it done in an hour, if you want. And, I, I- um… I’m not… I’m not doing this to win the contest, you know that, right?”

Soon gave him the ‘I appreciate that you’re lying to make me feel better’ look.

“I’m  _ not _ . If you want me to make it so you’re the only one with access to the glade, I will. I’m not doing this to win, I’m doing this so this stupid contest and all it’s participants don’t drive you insane because they don’t know what ‘alone time’ is.”

The paladin blinked, once, then twice, and Girard would never be able to measure how high his heart soared when Soon’s expression shifted to something like trust.

“I think. I think, if you also had access to the glade, that… I’d like that,” Soon said, blushing and immediately turning back to his food.

Girard’s eyes were probably glowing purple from happiness, and he didn’t give a fuck.

  
  
  


He gave a bit more of a fuck six hours later when he realized he had no idea what the etiquette for secret magic garden meetings with a prince was.

“Do I bring something? Like food or wine or flowers- no, we’re gonna be in a magic garden, I can’t bring flowers- fuck, what am I supposed to  _ wear _ !?”

“My regrets are infinite in number and boundless in intensity,” Vaarsuvius deadpanned, standing next to an equally exasperated Serini. Both of them had been listening to this for an hour. And a half. 

“THESE ARE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS!”

“Dude. Just wear your nice PJ’s so you can jump into bed and pretend you’re asleep tomorrow morning. I’m pretty sure Soon won’t care.”

“Given the robe-like nature of your sleep shirts and the fact that they don’t really have necklines he might even blush.”

“Plus I know your pajama pants were specifically made to make your ass look good.”

Girard glanced between the two like he wasn’t totally sure they weren’t fucking with him and took their suggestions to heart anyway.

  
  
  


The first night was wonderful. So was the second, and the third, and the seventh, and the twentieth, as Girard learned that Soon loved to dance almost as much as he loved to spar, and Soon learned that Girard was… actually invested in making him smile.

And, on a night like any other, the pair pulled out the ornate silver key Vaarsuvius had given them- the only two ways to access the glade. 

Girard unlocked the balcony doors. Soon unlocked his window. 

Both of them walked through, shutting their respective portals behind them. Somewhere along the line they’d stopped dressing up for this at all, and so Girard walked barefoot over a carpet of soft purple moss, through glowing white roses on ebony black stems, hands brushing the flowering silver vines that hung from the branches of shining golden cherry trees with blossoms in every color known to man. The garden was small and enclosed- a massive dome, about five hundred feet in diameter, of decorated bronze enclosed the entire thing, and Girard always entered from one side, and Soon always entered from the other, because their keys opened specific portals in the wall, so the pair of them had to actually walk to the huge clearing at the center. 

It never got any less breathtaking, and the plants all around him never once snagged the silk satin sleepwear Girard had put on about three days after his meeting Serini and promptly been completely enamored with. His feet were bare, his hair was brushed and hanging loose around his shoulders, he hadn’t even brought his swords because tonight was a dancing night.

And all that vulnerability somehow managed to never once unnerve him, because it was for Soon, it was all for Soon.

When the illusionist brushed aside the silver curtain of the vines that circled the central clearing, Soon was already lounging in the ring of piled cushions that circled the only moss-carpeted spot void of any other plant life.

The prince, like Girard, was barefoot and in pajamas. 

Soon’s eyes were sparkling in amusement and fondness and comfort, because Girard was late again, but Girard was the one person in his entire life who’d never held him to a royal standard. To any standard at all.

Girard, as always, felt the smile of a lovestruck idiot cover his face, because a lovestruck idiot was exactly what he was and a lovestruck idiot he would remain until such a time as his memories were wiped of any trace of Soon. The prince was gorgeous, and  _ relaxed _ , and the look on his face when he was lonely? The sad, determined, bitterly resigned expression he wore when he thought no one was looking?

The illusionist hadn’t seen it in weeks. Had  _ never _ seen it while the two of them were in the garden.

“Evening,” Girard murmured.

“Evening,” Soon replied, rising from the cushions in a single fluid motion with a grace that put even Vaarsuvius’ nonexistent footfalls to shame, as he stepped forward and grabbed both of Girard’s hands, slipping fingers between fingers and gliding closer until the two of them were sharing air.

“Any requests?”

“Mmm… a waltz. Something nice and slow and horribly romantic,” the prince said, and Girard snapped his fingers and obliged him.

Music wound through the garden, with no source but Girard’s magic, and the two of them danced through the night, until, five waltzes later, the two of them were swaying in tandem, and Soon spoke.

“Why did you enter the competition?”

“Hm?”

“Well, you want to win, but you’ve gone to far greater lengths to make sure I’m happy than even my father, so… why?”

Girard pursed his lips and didn’t reply for a moment.

“I… can I say something that’ll absolutely ruin my image as anything besides a lovestruck mess?”

“I wasn’t aware you had one but go on.”

“Oh for- fine. I… didn’t. I didn’t enter the competition to win it.”

Soon raised an eyebrow, waiting for Girard to elaborate as they stepped into a slow spin.

“I. Might have entered it just so I could see you again. Because you’re… kind, and good, and brilliant, and sharp, and you’re  _ you _ and you’re perfect and I knew about ten seconds after learning your name that I was never gonna find anyone else that could compare, let alone measure up, to you.”

The music faded out, and Soon spent the entire interim between that waltz and the next one staring absolutely floored at his dance partner.

“You- I think you just singlehandedly ruined romance for me. Godsdamnit, where the  _ hell _ else am I supposed to find someone that smooth? Huh? When you realize you’ve got a whole future going for you and I’m just a sheltered idiot who was adopted to seal an alliance?”

“Hey! Don’t talk about my boyfriend like that, he’s gorgeous and perfect and manages his situation better than anyone I’ve ever met and he’s clearly not  _ that _ much of an idiot, since he brought a sword when he broke out of the palace.”

Soon huffed, swatting at Girard’s chest as another waltz began and Girard pulled them into a box step, and for a time, there was only music again.

“You know… even if all the other competitors were perfect for me. I’d still want you to win more than any of them. I  _ do _ want you to win more than any of them, and, if- if you were one of the last three, and I could choose to marry you, or choose to stay single and marry whoever I wanted… I’d. I’d still pick you.”

_ You would choose a fool and a thief and a man who’s nothing without a Wish over glittering feast halls and an honest spouse? _

_ ...would you? _ Girard thought, as he spun Soon out and away and pulled him back in.  _ Would you choose a liar who loves you over an honest man who doesn’t? _

“I can’t imagine not choosing you no matter what reality we’re in,” Girard murmured, because he couldn’t, because out of all the things he’d said to Soon that one was the truest.

There was no world, no life, no time when he didn’t pick the paladin, as a love, as an enemy, as the most important person in the world one way or another.

They danced until the night was gone and Soon had to leave in time to get dressed for the day. Girard walked him back to the ornate door that led back to whatever place he’d entered from, and this time, he lingered in the garden long after the paladin was gone.

He wished he hadn’t. Hindsight was ever perfect and he could only wish he hadn’t, because he walked back through the balcony doors to find Vaarsuvius bleeding on his bedroom floor, with tears in their eyes and their knives in their hand and the words ‘I was a fool to trust a performer’ on their lips.

  
  


Vaarsuvius sat, newly bandaged and still conscious, on what had become their chair in Girard’s room. The illusionist hadn’t changed out of the clothes he’d worn to the garden, hadn’t even put his hair up, and was sitting on the bed.

“So Right-Eye was working for Inkyrius,” he muttered darkly. Vaarsuvius nodded, and Girard was glad they’d known each other as long as they had because it saved a lot of explaining of ‘no really, I’m not mad, just plotting what we’ll do.’

“Inkyrius is currently in possession of the lamp and their own set of three wishes. I have not seen Serini since Right-Eye’s theft, but I did leave some rather impressive gashes on him.”

It was good they were so paranoid. It meant that Vaarsuvius was pissed but not betrayed, because they’d never trusted Right-Eye in the first place.

“So now wh-”

The door to Girard’s bedroom was flung open by one of the remaining seven princes.

“I challenge you to a duel at sunrise over your tampering with Prince Soon Kim’s affection!” The elf proclaimed, pointing a rapier at the illusionist and looking very pious and righteous and like he really believed he was doing Soon a favor.

Girard and Vaarsuvius cursed in unison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SHIT'S HIT THE FANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN GET READY TO HURT IN THE DEEPEST RECESSES OF YOUR SOULS MOTHERFUCKERS


	28. The Dragon and the Magic Lamp: Part 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This. This was fun to write.

“It is not too late for you to-”

“To what, ‘Suves?” Girard asked, a little harsher than intended. They were in one of the many sitting rooms, getting ready for the showdown with the prince, a duel called forth in the name of Soon’s ‘honor’ (ridiculous, because the paladin could defend his own honor and also because if Soon had issues he’d talk to Girard and Girard would promptly remedy them with sharp objects and unmarked graves). Given what Girard knew about Inkyrius, he was going to lose.

“I… am not sure, in all honesty,” Vaarsuvius admitted. The elf was more despondent than Girard had ever seen them, and all at once, it clicked.

“You… you still love them.”

If Vaarsuvius’ caught-with-the-cookie-jar expression didn’t tell him he was right, then the way their ears drooped would have.

“_ How _ do you still love them!?”

“I- I am- I do not… It- They’re Kyrie! They’re my Kyrie, they’re _ still _ my Kyrie and on every occasion that I have seen them in this, this hellscape, I- I am not… I can barely put a wound on them without a panic attack, because they’re still Kyrie. They’re horrible and cruel and they’ve done awful things and _ so have I _.”

Something _ painful _twisted in Girard’s chest when he saw the look on Vaarsuvius’ face.

“...I’m sorry.”

“You have no reason to be. I am as surprised as you are.”

The illusionist wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but he didn’t get the chance to open his mouth before a guard came in and called him out to the duel.

“The rules are as follows-”

Girard already knew what the steward was saying, already knew that this was all out, everything but backstabs. Magic, enchanted items, everything was fair game.

He wasn’t going to win this. At this point, all he wanted to do was survive it.

Inkyrius wasn’t among the onlookers.

Girard’s lips thinned. Serini had managed- barely- to pop up halfway through his getting ready, and let him know that Inkyrius’ first wish was to have him and Vaarsuvius out of their way.

Inykrius strides- almost runs- down the hallway, in such a hurry to get away from the fight that they never notice a shadow following them. Vaarsuvius’ steps don’t make a sound, they never do, and Inkyrius was even less likely to notice now that their perfectly crafted composure was finally slipping, falling away to shatter on the palace’s marble floors.

They snap their fingers as they approach the door to their study, and said door swings open, closing behind them just a little too quickly for Vaarsuvius to slip inside without brushing against the end of Inkyrius’ coat.

The Court Mage freezes. Ever so slowly, they lift their head, gaze going from the desk in front of them to the window behind it.

“...you aren’t here for the lamp,” they say, and Vaarsuvius doesn’t bother hiding when their spouse whirls to face them.

“If I were after the lamp, I would not be here at all.”

Inkyrius’ hands are shaking. Hair-fine tremors, just enough to mess up a spell with somatic components (_ There is no illusion so powerful as fear _ , _ and you don’t know that _). The clip holding back Vaarsuvius’ hair, that subtle little tell that they didn’t operate within the law, that one last piece of their family they could keep-

It weighs heavier, now. It weighs heavy, and Inkyrius’ hands are shaking, and they’re staring at Vaarsuvius with almost perfectly disguised fear.

Vaarsuvius stares at them with something raw and broken and pleading, with ‘_ please come back to me _ ’ and ‘ _ why are you doing this to yourself _ ’ and ‘ _ just come home _’, like every time Kyrie had dragged them away after a week of research. 

“So _ why are you here _? I know your little friend warned you of my first wish. She can’t kill you, but she can get rid of you for good.”

All at once, a lot of things clicked, and Vaarsuvius’ bowstring-taut position, ready to cut flesh on a hair trigger, vanished like it was never there because it was Kyrie.

It was Kyrie, and they’d never been able to hurt Kyrie.

“...you don’t _ want _ her to,” Vaarsuvius says, taking one step forward as Inkyrius takes one step back. “You don’t want us dead. Your little bird was in a perfect position to slit my throat but he gave me a wound that wouldn’t have been fatal even if _ nobody _ had found me. You could’ve poisoned us, cast something, hired any number of assassins before Master Draketooth’s second wish and you _ chose not to _.”

Inkyrius had closed their hands into white knuckled fists, and still, those fists shook, even as they clenched their jaw just like they did every time they were angry over inkstains on the dining table.

Vaarsuvius had thought there was still some of their Kyrie left in the Court Mage.

They’d never quite expected to be _ right _.

“You were useful.”

“I was not, nor were my companions, as evidenced by the _ first _ wish you made. No. This- this is you. This is because you, you- you are still my Kyrie.”

“I’m not _ your _ anything!”

“Our completely valid marriage certificate disagrees,” Vaarsuvius says, folding their arms because they know they’ve already won the argument. Inkyrius is looking more wild-eyed by the second.

“Great! I’m filing for divorce!”

“What _ exactly _ is it that you hope to accomplish by gaining control of an empire?”

Inkyrius opened their mouth, looking for all the world like they actually had an argument prepared for this, and didn’t say a thing.

“...is it wealth? Power? Funds for your research? You already have all of that without the crushing amount of responsibility required to run a kingdom, and you are far past intelligent enough to know that, so _ why _?”

Vaarsuvius’ grip was tight on their folded arms, and they knew their ears hadn’t lifted from that slump since Master Draketooth’s unfortunate realization, and their lips were pulled down at the corners and they probably looked pleading and pathetic and for the first time in their life, Vaarsuvius couldn’t bring themself to care (it was _ Kyrie _ their Kyrie Kyrie who understood Kyrie who listened Kyrie who was the one person in the whole world who liked them for more than what they could do).

“I… well, we fixed the dragon problem, they’re all questioned and dealt with upon being spotted in our territory, at this point it’s just… not leaving Xykon’s ex coworker on the throne.”

“Why? He has ruled well enough-”

Inkyrius growls in frustration, breath hissing between their teeth, and Vaarsuvius knows for a fact, now, that all those muscles built on sacks of flour have not faded. 

“He killed his little brother! He could still be _ working _ with the damn lich-”

Laughter bubbles out of Vaarsuvius’ throat before they can tamp it down, and Inkyrius looks worried, now.

“Xykon- Xykon is dead. Xykon was killed and then possessed each of my comrades, one after the other, until our commander put a sword through the stomach of my best friend and I had to _ kill them both _.”

Green-black eyes widen, and Vaarsuvius smiles like they’re destined for hell because they know, they _ know _, they will never be welcomed anywhere else.

And then, Vaarsuvius kisses their spouse for the first time in ten years.

Inkyrius could’ve (should’ve) killed them, because Vaarsuvius was a monster who wore a heroine’s pin in their hair and-

And Inkyrius was broken. Not cold or cruel or steely, they were broken. Shards scattered on the ground with frost around the edges, because the connections that kept them together and warm and grounded were severed. Had been severed. 

Vaarsuvius was a monster, twisted too far out of their form like metal beams collapsing in the heat of a fire with edges sharpened into claws, and Inkyrius was perfectly painted porcelain scattered all over the floor that cut you when you touched it because what else is a shard to do?

Even then, even now, even after everything, they complement (complete) each other so very, very well (twisted forms, broken parts, both of them robbed of their ability to be what they should’ve been, both of them taking jagged edges and gutting the people who want to make more), and it should scare Vaarsuvius so very, very much.

It doesn’t. Something in their chest feels weightless and bright and happy, full of wonder and want and affection, because for their entire left-a-path-of-carnage life, Vaarsuvius has never loved anyone more than the people who were meant to scare them instead.

Soon watches, at Redcloak’s side, the fight go on. Girard is brilliant, cunning, sneaky- everything Soon was never quite smart enough to be- and above all, what Soon’s finally noticing, is that he’s a _ liar _.

The feints, the way he looks at one spot to make his opponent move to defend it and then promptly stabs at the opening, down to posture, down to the look on his face. He’s lying without saying a word, and Soon is a paladin.

Soon doesn’t blame him. 

Going off the prince’s skill level, that’s why he’s winning. 

_ I wonder _ , Soon thinks, as Girard makes another hit. _ I wonder how much good he could do. I wonder how much he’s already done. _

People liked to think that it had escaped Soon’s notice, that news of the ‘Black Dragons’ making a name for themselves in the city happened to coincide with how many petty thieves escaped losing a hand, how many homeless vagabonds suddenly turned up with jobs and then homes not long after, how many ‘particularly obedient servants’ made it _ out _.

_ He’s a liar and a thief and he lives on loopholes, and I love him for it. He’s… everything I can’t be. Everything I need to have anyway. _

Soon grins, as Girard lands a nearly finishing blow, swords flashing in the light as he dances around the prince, and-

The prince puts a dagger through his side, a dagger glistening with something sickly and green and _ new _-

Girard collapses, white-faced, his swords fall with a metallic clatter-

He- he can’t breathe, Girard can’t _ breathe _-

“I WILL GIVE HIM THE ANTIDOTE ON ONE CONDITION!”

Redcloak is already down in the ring, _ when did that happen _, Soon’s gripping the railing so tight his knuckles are white-

“HE IS TO BE REMOVED FROM THE RUNNING!”

The other princes cheer. Soon thinks he might be sick, and then he looks up and sees the prince’s face.

Smug triumph showed the peasant arrogant pride-

Soon snarls. There is something made of teeth and claws and all-consuming _ rage _ uncurling from it’s nap inside his ribs. He wants to strangle the man. He wants to throw him in the dungeons and let him scream at the stone that someone still remembers him.

_ Treat me like property, will you? Like a prize and not a person. _

Redcloak has already agreed to the prince’s demand, and Soon is… a little surprised, at the look on his face. He’s blanched, and looks… inexplicably terrified.

The monster roaring at the bottom of his lungs only quiets a little, and only then for a moment.

Soon won’t be allowed to see Girard after this. He’s not in the running. He won’t be in the palace. 

The paladin looks down, past the bodies standing around, to the illusionist on the ground. His hair’s come loose, spilling in waves around him like a molten copper halo. The twin swords lay where they fell after slipping out of his hands, and his pale blue and bright purple clothing is dusty and torn and bloodied in places. Girard’s got a handful of cloak pressed to the wound, and the bloody green knife is on the ground in front of him, little red speckles dotting the sand.

His breathing is labored, and his eyes are open.

Bright, ice-sky-lightning blue eyes meet his own, and for one split second, Girard smiles. 

The illusionist’s voice in his head comes only a moment later.

_ Worth it. Kissing you is worth a stab wound. Knowing you was worth the world. _

“...running away was worth meeting you, and-”

Soon’s still looking at Girard even as servants and guards come to take him away.

“-nothing- nothing is worth losing you.”

_ Not my father, not the throne, not even the Twelve Gods. _

_ Not even me. _

  
  


Inkyrius pulls away, and even as it twists something painful and sharp and shattered in their chest, they shove a dagger in between Vaarsuvius’ ribs as they do. 

Their spouse gasps, shock or pain or both.

And then, they vanish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I torture you all as a sign of affection.


End file.
